Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on the move to crack down on boy racers, the record low road toll over Labour Weekend

The Police Minister is signalling a law change to crack down on boy racers after a violent brawl in Wairarapa on Saturday. 

Videos of men smashing a car's windows and beating up its driver are circulating on social media.  

The boy racers also threw bottles, rocks, and fireworks at police, with several people now facing charges.  

Minister Mark Mitchell told Kerre Woodham he is working on legislation with the Ministers for Justice and Transport.  

He says they hope to progress changes to give police teeth to clamp down on boy racers before the end of the year. 

Mitchell is also praising motorists for the part they played in New Zealand's zero road-toll Labour Weekend. 

It's a new record for the period, with the previous lowest being in 2013 with one person dead and 109 injured.  

Mitchell says told Kerre that this remarkable feat is down to people driving safely, as well as the work of Police over the long weekend.   

He says full credit goes to the Police and the work they're doing, but also to motorists, who need some credit in the fact they've been careful over the long weekend. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry wood of morning's podcast from
News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be as we've been discussing a wided up a
boy racer meat or street racer meat turned violent over
the weekend, with video on social media revealing a group
of men kicking and smashing the windows of a car
before beating up the driver. Police had bottles, rocks and
fireworks thrown at them while trying to disrupt the gathering.

(00:30):
Masterton Mayor Gary Cafull says the street racer problem seems
to be getting worse, but he's encouraged by the police minister,
saying that he's taking action on it because it's only
a matter of times, as Gary, before somebody has killed.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell joins me now from Sydney. Very
good morning to you.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Good morning Carrie.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Thank you very much for taking time out of your trip.
I know you will. Should we start with the good
news versus zero deaths on the road over Labor weekend?

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, I know, I mean just that is outstanding and
look full credit to the police and they do, but
also to motorists as well who you know, who you know,
they need some credit in the fact that they have
been careful of it's obviously over the long weekend that
they have been careful.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
And the way they've been using our roads.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I know that certainly down the South Island we had
some weather events happening down here as well that required
extra care on the road, and not only the police
respond but road users did as well.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Is it due to the cost of living. There's a
theory that the less money people have, the less likely
they are to get out on the roads and get
away because they can't afford it. Is it a numbers
game or just playing luck too?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
I don't look, honestly, I couldn't speak to that.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
I don't know, but I know that there has been
a fresh approach to road person of very closely with
Simming Brown on this in terms of sending targets, and
the police are responding and doing the outstanding job.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
They are, and they did an outstanding job almost this
almost exactly to the day back in June, on the
thirtieth of June, when they nationwide clamped down on street races.
And yeah, you know, it's whack a mole, isn't it.
You bang them down and up they pop again somewhere
else this time and whided upper over the weekend and
it was violent and it was ugly.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
You're right, it's a bit of work a mole.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
I think that they've had five or six years where
they've been operating in a very permissive environment where there's
a complete loss of respect for police and the communities
that these people live in, and the police have responded.
In the last twelve months, they're running operations against the
boy racers. They're cracking down hard on them, but obviously
they still come out. I mean this event in way
Rappa was the police actually did a very good job

(02:37):
of disrupting and interrupting that event. They are seizing cars,
they are making arrests. But we are working on some
legislation to give them even more powers and to send
very clear signal to these boy racers. As a society,
we're not putting up with their nonsense anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, because when the police turned up around the country
back in June, it wasn't like you found these angelic
children who were just being a bit high spirited in
their roadworthy vehicles. You found a lot of young people
who had safe cars, who had unpaid fines, who were
over the limit. You know, they're not angels who were
Clara and enthusiasts who just want to admire each other's vehicles.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
No, they're not.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
They don't care about anyone but themselves. And and by
the way, they're putting themselves at enormous an enormous at
enormous risk as well. So yeah, and look, they've been
rural communities, damage to rural communities, provincial towns like you,
throwing bottles, attacking police. We had police and right gear
and whatever six months ago. The police are responding very

(03:38):
strongly to it. Where as a government, we're going to
make sure that they've got additional tools that we can Actually,
it's going to be much easier to sez these these vehicles.
They might get them back, but they'll be contained. They'll
be crushed down to about, you know, a small piece
of metal. They won't be drivable or usable. But the
reality of it is curious that we've got to get

(03:59):
on top of this. Like I said to you, it's
they've had five or six years to sort of bake
it in. There's been some break we've done over the
last five months. We know we've got more work to do.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
I know it's very easy to do. The last five
and six years. Because I do that all the time.
I'm guilty of it. But I've got some loud and
proud former boy and girl racers who are in their
sixties now who are doing exactly this back in the day. God,
you might have done it back well.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
I think that there's always been rebels, but it's changed
so it's more menacing, there's more violence. These vehicles are
now high powered vehicles that they can get well organized
through social media and they cause major havoc in the community. So,
you know, there's lots of different communities. There's meors, there's
central government who have said, look, can we organize there's

(04:50):
motorsport clubs that floop, we can have skid pains and
things like that. They're not interested in any of that.
They want to come out. They know the disruptive and
what we're saying is that we're putting a line on
the sand. We're saying we're not putting up anymore. There's
going to be serious consequences now if you want to
participate in that sort of behavior.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
So is it the existing car crushing law, the Judas
Colin's law that was introduced in two thousand and nine
that I think only resulted in one car being crushed
and it wasn't Judith Collins, who was police minister at
the time. Oh three years we're destroyed under that law.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, so really good legislation, but probably we've realized that
it probably needs to be a little bit tougher in
terms of that required multiple warnings, and we're sort of
moving towards something much tougher that gives the police the
ability to be able to seize vehicles immediately. So I
can't talk too much to legislation because it's still we're

(05:44):
working very hard on it myself, Simeon Brown and Paul Goldsmith,
but it's going to we want it to be legislation
that's got some teeth and we'll actually give the police
real powers to be able to clept down on these
board races.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh okay, So the legislation isn't in place yet.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
No, it's not.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
We're still working on it, but we hope. We're working
hard and we hope that we may be able to
get in for reading before the end of the year.
I'm not too sure that we'll make the deadline, but
that's the deadline that we're sitting for ourselves.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, and I'm pretty confident we can make it.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
And is that the main thrust of the controls around
street illegal street racing, the seas out of those cars
and the crushing of them.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I think that the I think that if they
know they're going to lose them, lose their vehicles and
they won't get them back, that will be a big
deterrent and give the police some really meaningful additional powers
through your teeth.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
What about the Texas's third party insurance compulsory third party insurance?
Would that make a difference.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, I mean that's sort of that's something that you
can be looked at as well. It's not something that
we're looking at at the moment in this piece of legislation,
but certainly we'd look at any leavers that we could
use to put pressure on board races and stop them
from coming out and doing what they've been doing.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Okay, Just finally a Texas is what about the lower
speed limits brought in by labor? Would they have helped
bring the road toll down?

Speaker 3 (07:10):
I don't know. Again, I don't have any information on that.
I think that.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Look, I know for a fact that police have had
a very strong response around road policing. They'll be sit
targets and they're responding to those and those they're meeting
those targets. I know that road users, like I said,
you need to be acknowledged in terms of over the
long weekend. So I don't have any evidence or data
in front of me to say that speed limits have
had any impact or change to that behavior at all.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
We can just say yay and thank god that some
poor police officer didn't have to do that knock on
the door in the mooing. Absolutely, absolutely, you enjoy your
time away. Not a jolly. I suppose it's here done
bum up and you're not going to say much of Sidney,
but enjoy your time away and save travels.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, thanks, carry appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Okay. That is Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
For more from Kerry Wooden Mornings, listen live to news
talks there'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow the podcast.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Asked on iHeartRadio