Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this

I will take a short call in regard to the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. I congratulate the Minister on his sterling effort in getting this bill through Parliament. I also congratulate members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on the way they dealt with the issue. They basically looked at the bill from an objective point of view and tried to get the best solution for New Zealand residents and citizens. The issue predominantly affects a lot of urban centres, not just Christchurch but also major centres throughout the country. This bill is the best we can do to deal with that issue.

Opposition members have said they see a few holes in the bill, but they had a chance for 9 years to address the issue; the member who has been talking for the last 10 minutes, Clayton Cosgrove, actually put up his own member’s bill a few years ago. Now he has had revelations about what he should have put in his bill but did not. He knows that the reality of what he has been talking about for the last 2 hours will not happen. This bill is the best attempt and the best solution we can get to the issue we are dealing with. Labour members know that, are voting for it, and know it is the best solution. We commend this bill to the House and congratulate all the officials who have helped us, as well. We have been through many a different avenue to get to this result. I thank them for their time and effort, as well. We support this bill to the House.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this

It is a pleasure to take a call in the third reading of the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. I too add my thanks to the officials for the work they did in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which, I think, was done under some pressure at some stages. I acknowledge the members of the select committee.

I particularly acknowledge the submitters, once again. We heard from various submitters—some in Christchurch, some in Auckland, and some in Wellington. On the first day that we got back from Christchurch, where we had heard the first round of submissions on the Government’s two so-called boy-racer bills—this bill and its companion bill—I made a note that it was far more interesting than I had thought it would be. I came away with a very clear view, after hearing from the residents in Christchurch who were affected by good boy-racers, bad boy-racers, the police, and officials, that there is no quick fix to this problem. The legislation makes us feel as if we are doing something, but the question for the select committee and this House is whether these two bills will really make any difference or whether they are just window dressing. Having been through the select committee process and the consideration of the bills, I still believe that both bills, this bill and its companion bill, are window dressing.

I do, however, acknowledge that some useful tools are provided in this bill. I have acknowledged that in previous contributions. This legislation gives more powers to the police and, again, I want to share my colleagues’ concern that that is great but that there are still issues around police resourcing. We did not get an answer from the Minister about the issues around the cuts to the police resourcing we are seeing. Three hundred police cars have been cut—300 front-line vehicles. Enforcement is a really important part of making this bill, and the next bill we will be discussing, work. For example, the police on the North Shore, where I work, tell me that one in six calls that they attend relates to family violence. If there will not be additional police resources to deal with the measures in this bill, which give police more enforcement powers, what will happen to the issue of family violence? The previous Government was definitely committed to addressing family violence, and this Government may be committed to it. It is an ongoing issue. There is more and more reporting of family violence. There will also be ongoing issues with accident compensation, actually, and with sexual abuse counselling. However, I will put those issues to one side.

As I said, it was pretty obvious from the beginning that there was no easy fix to the problem. Submitters told us that noise was the big problem. I must admit that I came away, with my colleagues, thinking that if noise was the problem, then we should fix it. It felt as if it should have been easy to fix. Certainly, we had listened to Nicky Wagner, who had submitted a petition, and to all of the rarking up she had done over the last 3 years around the issue of noise, from the 2005 election through to the 2008 election—“This is something the Government has failed to address. Let us do something about it.”—and I think that that is a very sobering lesson for those members who are now in Government. It is very easy to rark up people. It is very easy to keep people distressed about things. It is very easy to say that we will fix it. But when it comes down to the problem, I say to Jonathan Coleman, it is not that easy to fix it.

I am particularly concerned that the expectations of the public have been raised about this bill and the companion bill. I think the public have been led to believe that this bill and the next bill will address the issue of illegal street racing, and that suddenly, in the four avenues in Christchurch, which are at the heart of the problem we have heard about, that street racing will stop. There will not be boy racers behaving badly. There will not be any noise. There will not be any of the bad social behaviour we have seen. Overnight it will stop when this bill is passed. I am really looking forward to coming back in a year and asking whether it has. Has the bill made any difference? I think that the people of Christchurch and the other cities who came along and made submissions to the committee about this issue—which is affecting them, and for whom we have a huge amount of sympathy—have been misled by this Government. As I said, it is a lesson for this Government about rarking up the issues when the issues are actually much more complex than this Government seems to think. During the select committee deliberation on this bill, I wondered how much thinking was done by the Government in putting up this bill, and whether there were some other approaches they considered.

All members, I am sure, who have any interest in road or transport safety, as I do, will have read the Automobile Association’s report, Saving Ourselves, and its submission on the transport safety consultation, Safer Journeys, that is out there at the moment. Some of my colleagues have mentioned that there have been successful police approaches to dealing with this issue. For example, there was Operation Sniper, and I think my colleague Carol Beaumont will talk a little bit about that operation in Manukau. Some young people enjoy baiting the police. The more those young people are out there, the more they will bait them. But the police have shown under Operation Sniper how the problem can be dealt with without this sort of legislation.

Another interesting thing in the AA report is the approach in South Australia. It is said that although New Zealand has stuck firmly to social marketing as an adjunct to enforcement, Australia has recognised that driving information campaigns on matters like fatigue cannot be linked to enforcement. Moreover, the Australians have gone further with social marketing campaigns to denigrate antisocial driving behaviour. The objective is to achieve a social consensus similar to that achieved on drink driving. The “small finger” campaign is aimed at young men showing off. I am interested to know whether this Government has had a look at what they are doing in South Australia, because I think that a lot of it is not just about enforcement and putting more laws in place, and making sure that the police have the resources; it is also about changing behaviour.

The Opposition does support some parts of this bill. We support the increase in demerit points because it is very obvious that fines do not work. In fact, fines become a badge of honour for many young people. They boast about the level of fines they have, with no intention of ever paying them. But, again, safe driving behaviour still relies on enforcement, on having police on the road, and on making sure they have the resources to catch people. As I said, we support many other useful tools, but that is one of them in particular. I think that a whole lot more work needs to be done around the demerits versus fines issue. There needs to be a whole lot more thinking about that and what it means. Labour is supporting this bill because overall we take the balance. The bill has more useful things than useless things in it, which is why we are supporting it.

I think that some real questions will be raised by communities that made submissions on this bill. I will be very interested to see whether in one year those affected by the serious harm that illegal street racers do to communities will find that things have changed. I suspect they will not have changed. I have to say that if the Government thinks that boy racers are a problem, then it should wait until the bikers get on the road and start rallying outside this Parliament with the concerns that they have around accident compensation levies. The bikers are just one group; I will not go into all the other groups.

Some other things were mentioned that people submitted on, and one was compulsory third party vehicle insurance. As reported in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee report, that insurance was suggested by several submitters as a means of altering drivers’ behaviour and reducing the numbers of unsafe vehicles. We understand that the Ministry of Transport is reviewing this type of insurance. We consider that it needs detailed investigation. The issue is outside the scope of this bill, but I suggest to the House that it is pretty urgent. It seems to be, from the submissions, that this is one way of really tackling the problem of what we have in New Zealand, which is a number of cheap cars that are easy to access. We can take them away, confiscate them, and crush them, but then people can get new ones. We have to make it more expensive through that compulsory third party vehicle insurance. Thank you.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill, as we have done from the beginning. Until the new-found rapprochement between Mr Cosgrove on the other side and me was made, we were frequently at loggerheads. He mocked us on occasion, and no doubt will again, about what we were doing supporting bills like this one and whether we were not the party of freedom. I will not target Mr Cosgrove, because he is being very nice and polite at the moment.

But I will say that freedom is not the same as a word that is not heard much these days: licence. Freedom is the freedom to do what one wants to do, with the huge caveat that it does not interfere with the rights of others. Licence is the right, supposedly, to do what one wants to do. But it comes with a disconcerting consequence, which is that those who have their rights infringed can do what they like to another. That is called anarchy, and nobody on any side of the House, I do not believe, supports that. We support this bill because people do not, as speakers on all sides have said, have the right to disturb people’s sleep, drive them half mad, or simply interfere with their enjoyment of their back garden on a summer’s night. Classical liberalism does not allow that, and we do not support it.

I also agree with Mr Cosgrove about the reluctance of judges to use the law that he sponsored and pushed through Parliament. Sadly, judges’ reluctance to use the ambit of the law is all too common. That is one of the reasons why the “three strikes” bill, which the ACT Party has sponsored and which now forms part of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, is necessary. I will use the example of Andrew Peter McGlynn. He is currently facing his fourth recall—yes, his fourth recall—from parole. Originally he committed murder 23 years ago. He was released from a life sentence after 9 years, committed an aggravated robbery, and was recalled. He was released again, committed another aggravated robbery, and was recalled. He was released again and assaulted a female.

That man should and would have been banged up for 14 years after the second aggravated robbery on parole had there been a “three strikes” law at the time. Sadly, the judges who dealt with him on those two occasions chose to give him sentences in the single figures, cut down by the Sentencing Act that was passed by the previous Government. This man is articulate and intelligent, and he has been able to fool the Parole Board not once, not twice, but three times. He is about to go back again. So I absolutely agree with Mr Cosgrove that the laws that we pass here are only part of the picture. Sometimes it is perfectly justified to blame the politicians, but not always. The judges must use what they are given by us, and if they do not do that, in my view that reflects very badly on the judiciary. This man, as I have said, is set again for recall after breaching parole conditions for a fourth time.

I will also speak briefly about Darien Fenton’s contribution, in which she said that we may have to come back here in a year, because the bill we are debating tonight may not achieve its aims. That is perfectly true, but there is nothing unique about that. Taxation law is amended constantly, for the very good reason that loopholes are found by lawyers who are paid a great deal more than I ever was as a lawyer. Those loopholes are closed, and they find new ones. Parliament then has to close those loopholes, and so on. That is why the Income Tax Act and similar legislation gets fatter and fatter by the year. It was ever so, and sadly it will always be so.

That is no reason to denigrate what we are doing here tonight. No doubt there will be clever lawyers—so-called civil liberties lawyers—who will take on these cases and find loopholes. We may well be back here next year. If we are, we will support whatever the Government proposes, if it appears to be a sensible response to those loopholes. Experience shows that in the case of both the boy-racer problem and the gangs, constant enforcement of the law by the police and constant, proper application of the law by the judges does work.

We talked briefly about the boy-racer thing in the last sitting week. I observed that at that time the problem had apparently abated somewhat in South Auckland. Mr Tau Henare has observed that it has moved to West Auckland. That is what happens. It is similar with gangs. I am reliably informed that when the police relentlessly applied the law in Wanganui and turned over, as they say, gang cars whenever they got the chance and there was reasonable cause to do so, gang crime went down. So it does work. It is a combination of effort by the police and by the judiciary.

As I have said, the boy-racer problem subsides when the law is enforced. There will be loopholes, no doubt, that will be uncovered and created by clever lawyers who somehow think their vocation in life is protecting those who make other people’s lives a misery. If we need to, we will come back here next year, the year after that, and the year after that to plug those loopholes, just as we do with tax law. Thank you.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) Link to this

I am pleased to speak on the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. I also thank the Minister, officials, and other committee members for the work they have done on the bill.

This bill is about making our roads safer. It gives police and transport agencies greater powers. It is all about tackling illegal street racing and the antisocial behaviour that goes with it. It is also about what happens in the aftermath of illegal street racing—the litter, the broken bottles, and the alcohol-fuelled, hoon-like behaviour. It is about the terrorising of residents. We heard from moteliers from Bealey Avenue about how it had affected their businesses: the negative impact on their businesses, and the fact that their clients had had disturbed sleep.

We heard about mob-like attacks on police officers. In January this year Christchurch Hospital had to move its patients from the front part of the hospital, which was by the street, to the back of the hospital. That was a major disruption for a service like that. We heard, unfortunately, of a number of deaths that have occurred from illegal street racing. On average, 137 crashes a year result in injury or death caused by this activity, which involves mainly younger people. These are unnecessary deaths, and that is a tragic waste of human life. This bill will stop the menacing cruising behaviour by boy and girl racers, and the intimidation of residents and pedestrians.

The Government’s Supplementary Order Paper, which will allow a 28-day vehicle impoundment period for the offence of failing to stop when requested, is a good measure. We were quite astonished to hear in the select committee that the police were very concerned that the youth driving these vehicles did not stop when asked to; they sped off and played cat and mouse, and flouted the law with no respect for the law whatsoever. Clearly, the current penalty of 35 demerit points and a fine of no more than $10,000 is not working, and I am confident that the 28-day impoundment provision will send a clear message to these street racers that this Government is serious. I commend this bill to the House.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) Link to this

Like others who have risen to speak on the third reading of the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill, I would like to acknowledge that illegal street racing is a real problem and something we need to address. Like many others on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, I was very moved by some of the submissions we heard on the bill, and particularly by some of the submissions made in Christchurch. People’s lives were seriously affected by their inability to sleep at night. Not being able to sleep on an ongoing basis is a serious issue. In some cases people were not able to use certain parts of their houses, or their businesses were being affected. Ms Blue said that in some cases people had to put up with menacing and intimidating behaviour. We had a situation where a person actually chose not to submit on the bill because of being scared of the consequences of doing so. In the end, the Hon Lianne Dalziel submitted in that person’s place. Labour recognises the seriousness of the problem and we will support, and we are supporting, any genuine effort to deal with the issue of illegal street racing and the antisocial behaviour that goes with it.

The chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, David Bennett, mentioned earlier that this is the best that we can do. I am afraid I do not agree with that. I think genuine efforts had been made by the previous Government, and I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleague Clayton Cosgrove in that regard, and, particularly, other Christchurch MPs. I think the Government is trying to progress those efforts and take them a step further, but this is not the best we can do; there is a lot of window dressing in this bill and its companion bill, and there are some areas of concern.

But before I go into those areas, like others, let me acknowledge all of the people who made submissions on the bill—and there were a significant numbers of submissions. Likewise, I would like to acknowledge the officials. They worked very hard, and a lot of particularly interesting questions were thrown their way, which they attempted to respond to and often responded to very clearly. We were under quite a lot of time pressure, which was unfortunate; the consequences of that are that some areas are not as clear as they might be.

The bill aims to disrupt and deter illegal street racing and related activities such as cruising by enhancing the powers of road controlling authorities to create by-laws in relation to such activities, and to provide enforcement officers with more powers to tackle illegal street racing. The elements that are part of that are, first of all, the issue of cruising, which has been well canvassed tonight. The definition of “cruising” causes Labour members some concern. We are not sure that the wording in place will do the job. A change was made by the select committee. The definition stated that cruising refers to the act of “driving repeatedly over the same section of a road” to draw attention to the power or sound of the motor vehicle, or in order to create a convoy that impedes traffic flow. But now the definition talks about “driving repeatedly in the same direction over the same section of a road”, thereby excluding going backwards and forwards over the same section of a road. That is a concern because the noise will be the same either way.

Likewise, I am concerned about the issue of by-laws. Although I can see the logic that by-laws enable local authorities to make specific and relevant changes in their areas, all of the local authorities—certainly, all the ones I can recall—did not want that power. That is a very interesting point and one we did not come to terms with. They were saying that they did not think by-laws would be the right tool. They thought there should be legislation, yet we have gone ahead and put in place by-law provisions. It remains to be seen whether they will be effective.

My point earlier was that after listening to all of the submissions I think there is no easy answer to this problem, and the real issues are quite significant ones that require a range of responses. Overwhelmingly, the significant issue is noise—it almost goes without saying. The problem with illegal street racing is the noise it creates and the disruption it causes. That is the biggest problem. The second and third problems are road safety issues arising from the actions of those illegal street racers, and their antisocial behaviour, which is often fuelled by alcohol.

The terminology of “cruising” and the use of by-laws to stop cruising are effectively a proxy; a proxy to try to stop the cars from going round and round, if you like, so the noise will not be there, the road safety issues will not be there, and the antisocial behaviour will not be there. In theory it is possible to imagine a situation where a car or several cars drive round and round some of the places we are talking about without causing trouble, without creating unnecessary noise, without creating road safety problems, and without antisocial behaviour. So it is not the actual cruising that is the problem; it is the things that go with it, and I do not think that we have effectively tackled those questions.

We decided the decibel issue was too hard so we have left it alone. We heard from the police that they have a couple of noise provisions that are potentially very effective and can assist them. They are the Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Equipment 2004 and the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, both of which give the police quite a lot of scope to deal with the issue of noise. But to do so, they need to be there, and they need to be there in sufficient numbers and at the right time to utilise those provisions. The police made those points to us quite strongly. Likewise, road safety issues and policing of road safety problems are about having adequate policing.

Members can see that there are a whole range of possibilities relating to the third issue of antisocial behaviour. Why do young people congregate in these ways and take the actions that they do? Alcohol is certainly one of the reasons, and I guess there is an opportunity to look at that. The Law Commission has flagged the issue of drinking and cars and whether more needs to be done in relation to that issue. We have quite strong drink-driving provisions, but in the case of illegal street racing and boy racers the issue is not just the driver but the passengers, and there is a need to look at their antisocial behaviour, which is fuelled by alcohol. Significant things can be done in all of those areas.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the policing initiatives, because I was very impressed with what the police have been doing in some parts of New Zealand. We were led to understand that very effective initiatives and interventions are being undertaken by the police in regard to illegal street racing, such as Operation Sniper in Counties-Manukau. I will talk a little bit about that, but, first, I put on record my acknowledgment of the work of the police in relation to this issue. I think the police try very hard, with the resources they have, to tackle the problem.

What became clear to us is the need for greater consistency in police behaviour across the country. What has worked well in some parts of the country can be utilised elsewhere. I will explain a little bit more about Operation Sniper in Counties-Manukau. It targets illegal street racing and driving complaints in Counties-Manukau. Basically, a full-time sergeant has been put in place to deal with the problems. A number of initiatives have been looked at. These included looking at intelligence around illegal street racing, staff training on the relevant legislation and what could be done within the existing rules, education campaigns at the local high school, using the existing by-laws in place in Manukau City, looking at overt and covert police tactics, working with partner agencies such as the Manukau City Council and the Department of Corrections, working with affected local business owners and residents, and trying to develop new initiatives. There has been a significant impact as a result of those initiatives, and the numbers bear this out.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I am glad I was part of this bill. I want to thank Steven Joyce; David Bennett, the chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and a good chairperson he is, too—Nicky Wagner, who went out of her way to collect many, many signatures; and Paul Quinn, as well. Nicky Wagner went out and collected many, many signatures because this was an issue particularly in Christchurch.

I want to talk about the meaning behind this bill. This bill is about reducing harm, reducing the nuisance, reducing disorder, and reducing antisocial behaviour. It has nothing to do with noise. If it had something to do with noise, then fellows like me and my mates in South Auckland in the best part of the 1970s would have been done for making too much noise. There would have been legislation all over the place about making noise. It is not about noise. It is about reducing harm to the community. I know that those people who get up and talk about noise are getting a wee bit old. They cannot handle the sounds that the little Honda Civics and Nissans make. Some of us can handle the noise that the V8s and the Fairlane 500s make going up the street. I know that it is a long time since we heard that big, grunty sound. The issue is about the harm and the disorder that is created around the use of vehicles today.

What I like about this bill is that it states that a licence is a privilege, not a right. When somebody gives us a privilege we have certain responsibilities: to act nicely, and to act within the law. If people do not act within the law, then their licence should be taken away from them. I like the idea of a licence, as a piece of property, belonging to the agency. Licences do not belong to individuals, they belong to the agency, and it is a privilege for individuals to hold that piece of property until they no longer need it, or they have transgressed and they have to give back that property because they have stepped over the mark.

So I think this is a good bill. Obviously, to some people it will not be the biggest Christmas present they have ever had, but it does go a long way to reducing harm, nuisance value, and disorder, and everybody knows what comes from disorder. The bill is also about reducing antisocial behaviour. I too commend the bill to the House.

BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this

I will just pick up on the comments made by the previous speaker, Tau Henare, who said that this bill is not about noise but about harm. Well, I challenge him to tell that to my constituents—to tell them that no harm is caused by cars, 500 at a time, with modified exhausts, roaring down Fitzgerald Avenue or Bealey Avenue at 2 o’clock on a Saturday morning with unabated noise coming from their modified mufflers. He should tell that to my constituents, to whom Nicky Wagner pledged and promised that she would deal with this issue, and that she would see the allowable noise level cut from 95 decibels to 90 decibels. She said that it would be a priority for this National Government. She blackguarded Harry Duynhoven and called him a petrolhead, yet here we have Tau Henare saying it is OK to roar about in V8 cars like he did in the 1970s. Well, as I say, he should come down and tell that to my electorate.

My colleague Carol Beaumont quite rightly categorised this bill as covering three things. It is about noise, cruising, and antisocial behaviour, mostly linked to alcohol consumption. I have to note at this point that in the Committee stage and so far in the third reading we have not heard from a National member from Christchurch—

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) Link to this

I am very pleased to take what will probably be the final call in the third reading on the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill. Given that this is the first time tonight that I have spoken on this issue, I take the opportunity to thank the officials for their very good work through the Committee stage, and also during the deliberation on this bill by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am sure the officials are around, because the companion bill will be debated shortly by the Committee, so there is still some work to do. This opportunity is my one chance to thank them for that effort.

I also thank the hard-working chairman of the select committee, David Bennett, not only because he told me I should but also because I think he did a very good job. In fact, I am surprised that other members of the select committee, particularly those on the other side of the House, have not joined me in doing so. It strikes me as symptomatic of the very passive-aggressive kind of approach that members on the other side took in the select committee. They sat as quiet as mice when we were talking about some of the issues, yet they were up like lions in the Committee stage, saying things that were not part of the select committee process. I will give members one example.