Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2: I'd be lowering the threshold for crushing cars, hiking fines
Speaker 2: from the noisy exhausts, and harsher penalties for those who
Speaker 2: refuse to stop for police. So will these changes make
Speaker 2: a difference? Police Minister Mark Mitchell joins me. Now, good afternoon, Hey.
Speaker 3: Uster doing Tim, I didn't realize so many people were
Speaker 3: listening to you. Made I apologize for being late, that
Speaker 3: I was getting text messages and list pools and everyone's putting,
Speaker 3: he told me, saying good on them. That's good.
Speaker 2: That's good to hear. Hey, I hope you had a
Speaker 2: good day with family and things.
Speaker 3: Now, well, I've been able to route a rout today
Speaker 3: with I've been able to write a root today with
Speaker 3: Chris Bishop announcing this policy that you want to talk about. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: which is generating some good interest, which is great.
Speaker 2: How bad has the problem?
Speaker 3: Got?
Speaker 2: What's your primary motivation?
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at if you go back to
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, they were dealing with about fifteen hundred cases
Speaker 3: of boy or people coming out and sort of misbehavior
Speaker 3: on the streets in groups. If you fast forward to
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, it's now over three thousand, so it's doubled.
Speaker 3: And I'm aware of the police are running operations all
Speaker 3: over the country. We have these boy races and these
Speaker 3: dirt bike riders that come out and think that they
Speaker 3: can harass and terrorize the communities that they're in. It's
Speaker 3: obvious that we need to take the police need to
Speaker 3: have some better tools, and the courts as well, and
Speaker 3: that's why we've we're going to introduce this legislation as.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's always a bit of this and
Speaker 2: a bit of that, but how much of this is
Speaker 2: a response to the police saying perhaps, look, we need
Speaker 2: some more tools for this rather because we all can
Speaker 2: see the problem. But have the police requested this power
Speaker 2: as well, or that.
Speaker 3: These contents so that no, so the police didn't come
Speaker 3: and directly request that. We obviously saw it. We've got
Speaker 3: feedback from the communities. We looked at it and could
Speaker 3: see that although the legislation was passed originally was full
Speaker 3: of good and tent, it requires three prosecutions before vehicles
Speaker 3: are seized and destroyed. So what we've changed is that's
Speaker 3: a three strike regime. We've changed it to one strike
Speaker 3: regime where now you only need need to be convicted once.
Speaker 2: How has the law been failing until now? Is it
Speaker 2: that actual warning part of it that means you know,
Speaker 2: we never I mean Port Judith Collins got the nickname
Speaker 2: Crush of Colins probably because they're really never any crushed
Speaker 2: any cars.
Speaker 3: They did crush a few cars and there's still I
Speaker 3: think there was twelve last year. But the real here
Speaker 3: it is it's not a big enough to terrent because
Speaker 3: you need those three convictions. So we've established a presuptive
Speaker 3: court sentence now of destruction all forature of vehicles involved
Speaker 3: in street racing, filling police, or involved in intimidating convoys
Speaker 3: I sort of gain convoys and things like that.
Speaker 2: So basically that means if you you tick the your
Speaker 2: box with these offenders, but these offenses, your car is
Speaker 2: going to get crushed unless you can convince us otherwise.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, unless it's unless it's absolutely in officially unjust
Speaker 3: and you can prove that to the courts, then your
Speaker 3: vehicles gone. It will be destroyed.
Speaker 2: That's the bit that sort of caught my attention, The
Speaker 2: quote if it's manifestly unjust or causes extreme hardship to
Speaker 2: the offender or undue hardship to any other person, and
Speaker 2: of course everyone's going to have a sob story and
Speaker 2: a lawyer are you Are you confident that people are
Speaker 2: not just going to be wriggling off the hook with
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: No, well, we'll be watching very closely and carefully to
Speaker 3: make sure that doesn't happen. But we have to. We
Speaker 3: felt that we have to give the judge the ability
Speaker 3: to Every case is different, and you will get some
Speaker 3: genuine cases where you know there will be a finding
Speaker 3: of being manifestly unjust or unfair due to what the
Speaker 3: circumstances may be. So you've just got to have that
Speaker 3: in there. However, you know, our expectations of government is
Speaker 3: that that would have to be that would have to
Speaker 3: be a rare occasion and certainly not a standard approach.
Speaker 2: What do the police have the capacity to enforce these
Speaker 2: laws and to really call people to count on the stuff.
Speaker 3: The police themselves? Yeah, well, I mean now they do
Speaker 3: now because they're getting extra powers. They're able to close
Speaker 3: public roads, they're able to now that they serious infringement
Speaker 3: and finds that they can that they can issue immediately,
Speaker 3: they can take them to court. The courts have got
Speaker 3: a high threshold around the finds that they can apply.
Speaker 3: We've now gone to a first strike presumptive system, whereby
Speaker 3: they lose it on the first strike rather than the
Speaker 3: third strike. So I think when you combine all these together,
Speaker 3: it is a very clear signal being sent out to
Speaker 3: these boy racers and these dirt bike riders that as
Speaker 3: a country, we're not tolerating this anymore. You want to
Speaker 3: be engaged in a noxious, dangerous behavior, then there's going
Speaker 3: to be serious consequences around it.
Speaker 2: What's your time frame for getting this and all passed
Speaker 2: and into action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good question. So we'll definitely get the legislation into
Speaker 3: the House this year, but it probably won't be an
Speaker 3: effect be passed and until early next year.
Speaker 2: Okay, any examples from overseas you've borrowed?
Speaker 3: No, No, just sort of we've taken the legislation that
Speaker 3: was sort of that was there originally, and we've just
Speaker 3: strengthened it.
Speaker 2: Do you think people will get the message because I
Speaker 2: actually I didn't realize it was a dozen cars last year.
Speaker 2: You'd think word would get around. But do the people
Speaker 2: who are doing this, you know, breaking these laws, will
Speaker 2: they get the message? Or it'll just be oh bad luck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope they do. I hope that, and I
Speaker 3: hope that people that lend their vehicles will give their
Speaker 3: peoples to vehicles to people to go out and use
Speaker 3: at night that are a bit more prudent about who
Speaker 3: they give them to and what they're going to be
Speaker 3: used for. I think that that. I think it will
Speaker 3: have an impact when these boy racers realize that the
Speaker 3: vehicles are gone and there's no chance of getting them back,
Speaker 3: and it's not a third strike, it's a first strike,
Speaker 3: so that the police have got more powers. I do
Speaker 3: think that I do think that'll have a serious deterrent effect.
Speaker 3: You know, with the sort of.
Speaker 2: Behavior, how will you judge success.
Speaker 3: Well, if there's a reduction in the amount of these
Speaker 3: events that are that are occurring that you know, the
Speaker 3: impacting the community negatively and obviously tying up police resource.
Speaker 2: I think Jinnie Anderson must love this law because when
Speaker 2: it comes to criticism, she's the only thing she's mentioned
Speaker 2: is it's a distraction. You're throwing in there to distract
Speaker 2: from a year equal pay legislation. So what's your response
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: I'm focused on public safety, and we went backwards rapidly
Speaker 3: under the previous government, and we're starting to regain ground there.
Speaker 3: The police are doing outstanding work. The Labor and Green
Speaker 3: Party are voted against just a bit every messure that
Speaker 3: we've tried to introduced around public safety, and a lot
Speaker 3: of it is proven to be very effective.
Speaker 2: And I guess it doesn't matter what gender you are
Speaker 2: when it comes to these laws, it'll be enforced equally.
Speaker 2: Nothing say that's me being mischievous. Hey Mark, I really
Speaker 2: appreciate your time this afternoon, Thanks so much. Here we
Speaker 2: go than probably that is a Minister of Police, Mark Mitchell.
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