Garrett David: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Garrett David: Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to indicate our support also for the bill at least at the first reading stage but before getting to the speech I have prepared I just want to touch on comments made by the last speaker which I think I could summarise as: “What’s really needed here is some nice healthy safe outlets for these people”—I will come to what I call them in a moment—“and if we only had some nice safe healthy outlets for these people who want to do burnouts and rev-ups and whatever else they do then we’d be fine.” 
Well we do have those outlets. There is a drag racing strip south of Auckland. Whenever I have driven past it on a weekend it is almost never used. I think I have seen it once or twice with a big crowd. There are car-rallying clubs where roads are closed and if people wish to drive at high speed and take their car out on a tree they can. I can imagine the thrill of that. I have certainly been a youth in a car and as the previous speaker said there is motor racing and stock car racing all of which are legal outlets for people who wish to get a thrill from speed and from cars and from noise and from contest. So it is not a matter of a lack of outlets. In my view it is a matter of lack of discipline and lack of respect for other people’s rights. It has been a pleasure to hear speakers on the other side of the House with whom I can almost wholly agree—among them the Hon Shane Jones. He and I are probably fairly far apart on the political spectrum but I could not disagree with much of what he said. 
On this issue I want to start with talking about the language and this very term “boy racer”. It tends to suggest at first hearing and to someone who was not a New Zealander young boys in go-carts or on trolleys as we used to call them. These people are not in fact boy racers; they are road criminals. They are road criminals who kill people. It has happened in Christchurch on more than one occasion. A man emailed me just today regarding a case presently before the courts that he was concerned about which arose from just one of those types of events. Mr Shane Jones referred to the case of the security guard and I would like if I may to read from an excerpt from the Christchurch  
Press 
 which fleshes out that incident a bit: “As she rounded a bend she came across about 100 boy racers some of whom approached her car smashing the driver’s window and two passenger windows with what were thought to be bottles.” Aviation Security general manager Mark Everitt said: “The car in front was right up against the bonnet. It was like they had her imprisoned. … She was really scared. She didn’t think she was going to get out of it.” What a terrible terrible situation for a person simply doing her job round the back of Christchurch airport. Why should she be subjected to that kind of behaviour by those criminals? They are not boy racers. They are not frustrated healthy car-racers. They are criminals. 
The ACT Party will be supporting this bill to a select committee. We do not do so because we see it as perfect. Speakers on the other side of the House and indeed from the National side have raised several issues that need closer scrutiny. The “cruising” definition is one such example. But a select committee is the place to flesh this out and to improve it. I would like to pay tribute to Minister Joyce and Minister Collins for the work they have put into this bill and the next one to be considered and to my National Party colleague Nicky Wagner for her tireless efforts in lobbying on behalf of the residents of Christchurch and other centres plagued by those criminals. And plagued they are! 
The incident I just referred to and which the Hon Shane Jones referred to concerning the security guard is well known but it is not the only one. It is happening all around the country. I hear sadly I think from Labour and from Darien Fenton what I would call Clayton’s support. She said that Labour will support the bill to the select committee but that laws like this will not add anything. I believe that is shorthand for: “We are pretending to be open-minded but we won’t support it any further because it won’t change behaviour.” She said it would not change behaviour. There is a limit to what legislators can do. We cannot make people respect each other. We cannot make people understand that their rights are subject to the rights of others. We can only make laws. All we can do is make laws and perhaps make speeches on them. That is the only way we can attempt to change behaviour. We can only legislate punishing bad behaviour. 
I would join other speakers in agreeing that the Labour Party made a good effort in its last term to get laws in place but sadly it has been proven that they have not worked. We have still got the problem. Mr Jones touched on the point—and I am delighted to take his point further—that the laws are frequently ignored by the judiciary. That is a problem and it is one of the problems that lie behind our proposals of a “three strikes” law for violence with a mandatory sentence. Sadly Parliament can indicate all it likes but at the end of the day the judges make up their mind unless Parliament says “This is what will happen.” Perhaps this issue is an illustration of where the softly softly approach was put in place by the Labour Government yet we still have the problem. We still see people like that lady being terrified while going about her lawful business around the back of the airport and the judiciary is not applying the law. So maybe this is an illustration that on some occasions we need to get a bit firmer and say to the judges: “This is the law. These are the punishments after people have had two chances; they don’t get 102.” It highlights the need to be firmer perhaps on some occasions. The ACT Party is delighted to support the bill at this stage.