Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 9 February 2023.

This bill will strengthen New Zealand’s criminal legislation to prevent and respond to the harm caused by gangs and other criminal activity. It gives effect to the Labour Party’s 2020 election manifesto to keep the pressure on gangs by ensuring we have the resources and powers to disrupt criminal gang activity, prosecute relevant offending, and seize the proceeds of crime. Recently, we’re all aware that we have seen an increase in gang violence. There is also the context of deeper changes to the gang environment, including the establishment of Australian gangs in New Zealand, resulting in increased inter-gang pressures and a greater willingness to escalate to violence using firearms. Regardless of the cause of this violence, however, its impact has been felt in our most vulnerable communities and we must respond. Many gang shootings have been in residential areas, causing distress to communities across Aotearoa, and that is unacceptable. Everyone should feel safe in their beds at night.

This bill responds by amending the Search and Surveillance Act to create new search powers for police to use during times of gang conflict. These powers will enable police to conduct a search for weapons and will enable police to locate and seize weapons more effectively when tensions between gangs are high, reducing the risk of harm to communities. These are wide powers and as such must only be used in exceptional circumstances. To use these powers, police must obtain a warrant from a judge who must be satisfied that a gang conflict exists and that the powers under the warrant may reduce the risk of harm to people or property. There must be reasonable grounds to suspect the property to be searched is used either by a member of the gang or by someone who is encouraging or assisting gang conflict. The warrant safeguard will ensure police have the tools to adequately respond to risks to public safety without undermining those rights and freedoms which are crucial to a just and democratic society.

The bill also creates a new offence in the Crimes Act, that of discharging a weapon with intent to intimidate. We know that these shootings are motivated in part by a desire to intimidate and sow fear. It’s important that the law holds those involved in threatening and intimidating behaviour to account, particularly when it involves the use of a firearm. This new offence is in addition to existing offences within the Crimes Act, which require intent to cause physical harm and provides an alternative option for dealing with firearms offending.

Shootings are not the only way in which gangs seek to intimidate those around them. Gang convoys, where large groups of gang members travel together on the road, often involve high-risk and illegal behaviour such as dangerous or reckless driving. The aim of those involved is to intimidate through a display of power and disregard for the law. The Bill responds to this behaviour by amending the Land Transport Act to expand the offences which result in a mandatory 28-day vehicle impoundment. The list now includes dangerous and reckless driving not causing injury or death, as well as aggravated careless use of a vehicle causing injury or death. It sends a clear message: if you engage in this unacceptable behaviour, we will take your vehicle.

Finally, we know that these conflicts are, in part, about profits, as gangs seek to protect and expand their share of the incredibly lucrative illicit drug trade. This scourge on our country is worth almost $300 million a year, with our most vulnerable communities targeted by organised criminal entities. Drug dealing is largely conducted in cash, which is then laundered and disguised as legitimate income. The bill responds to this behaviour by placing two additional safeguards around the use of cash. Firstly, the bill amends the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act to prohibit cash transactions over $10,000 for specific goods. These goods, which include jewellery, gold bars, cars, and bikes, are items we know are frequently used by organised criminal entities to launder money. Limits on the use of cash to purchase these goods or help disrupt money laundering efforts.

Secondly, the bill amends the Search and Surveillance Act to give police additional seizure powers in relation to suspicious cash. Under the existing legislation, police are powerless to seize the cash and investigate its origins unless they are able to tie it to a specific offence at the point of discovery. The amendments in this bill will enable police to seize cash they suspect is the proceeds of crime in order to further investigate and gather evidence of that offending. This will better equip them to disrupt criminal transactions and money laundering. Like the new search powers, this new cash seizure power has important safeguards. It is time bound, which means police must return the money if they cannot demonstrate evidence offending within the time set out in the legislation. It also can only be used in relation to cash that police believe to be more than $10,000.

Together with the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, which the Government has just introduced to the House, these measures will hit those people where it hurts the most: their profits. Successfully disrupting the gang’s ability to launder money and profit from their criminal activity is key to reducing the incentives to carry out these activities in the first instance. It is important to remember that tackling organised criminal activity and harm requires us to also tackle the causes of marginalisation, which leads young people down that path. This Government is committed to ensuring those who are at risk, including young people and 501s, have the support they need to make better choices for their future.

However, it is important to note that where organised criminal entities engage in criminal behaviour and spread fear within our communities, we must respond, and respond decisively. The police need effective but proportionate powers to disrupt criminal activity, including that perpetuated by these criminal organisations. This bill responds to that need and will enhance community safety by providing clear legal authority for police to intervene and disrupt relevant criminal activity. To this end, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, firstly, can I acknowledge the new, incoming Minister of Justice, because, you know, we have got a tough situation in this country, without a doubt, but she has come in with energy and she genuinely is bringing legislation to the House and is trying to pick up some momentum and get some momentum going. So I do want to genuinely acknowledge her for that. We are going to support the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill through this first reading to select committee. Actually, I think that there are some very good amendments contained inside this bill.

But I do want to highlight one issue—that is the fact that one of the amendments is the new “Discharging [a] firearm with intent to intimidate” offence. I do want to highlight that there is a massive gap in the legislation that the Government has brought, in terms of trying to deal with the gangs, firearms, and gun violence that we see perpetuating itself through this country on a weekly basis. If I just go back to the amendment, the bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 and introduces a new offence for discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate in a public place. Currently, there is an apparent gap in the law, where law enforcement can intervene when a firearm is discharged with intent to intimidate, but only when it is to intimidate those in a dwellinghouse. The bill enables the Crimes Act to address all situations where a firearm is discharged with the intent to intimidate any person or group of people. The bill sets a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for this offence. That is a strong term of imprisonment, which will bring me to my next point.

But the point that I wanted to make around this is quite simply the fact that we have had a Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill come through the House that didn’t have any new, additional search powers. So that has meant that it’s a more ineffective bill for the police to use operationally to try and prevent the use of firearms. Although this bill is trying to toughen up the law around the discharge of firearms, there is still a big gap in terms of the Police having the legislation that it needs to stop that occurring in the first place. This bill is, quite simply, reactive—once the action has already taken place. When you’re dealing with firearms, firearm violence, and drive-by shootings, you want to avoid that first drive-by shooting, because I don’t know how we got away with it—it’s only that we obviously had lady luck on our side—the fact that no members of the public were seriously injured or killed in any of the recent drive-by shootings that we witnessed.

So I’m just signalling to the Minister that, although good legislation, there’s a big gap there, because this is reactive. The police need to be able to have some legislation and some new search powers that are proactive, that allow them to actually be able to take action, to be able to search, to be able to confiscate, to be able to take weapons off gang members—whether they’re in their vehicle, whether they’re in a gang pad, whether they’re in their own home or an associate’s home. And this bill just doesn’t do it. So I don’t know whether or not it would be within the scope of the bill to be able to look at that, and look at fixing that at select committee. My guess is that it is probably outside the scope of the bill. But I did want to highlight to the Minister that there is a gap there, and that if she’s serious about it, then she should take that up and have a look at it.

That brings me to my next point, which is a very interesting one in terms of the five years’ imprisonment for this offence. Five years’ imprisonment—that’s actually a good sentence. I think that it genuinely does reflect the seriousness of the offending. But when you go back to the departmental disclosure statement, the officials seem to have spent some time on whether or not this bill is consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations. They’ve gone through that, they’ve spelt it out very clearly and said that there are some deficiencies that we need to have a look at. They’ve gone through consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, on which they’ve done consultation with the Attorney-General, which is the right thing to do—that information has been posted to the Ministry of Justice website. But the thing that I find very interesting is that there hasn’t been proper consultation done around the consistency with the Government’s Treaty of Waitangi obligations—

Hon Member: What?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —yeah. And the officials have been very clear when they said, “Although there was no consultation with Māori”—so there’s been no consultation with Māori at all on this bill. And yet I’ve heard Government Ministers stand in this House—I’ve heard Government Ministers stand in this House—time and time again, and highlight the importance of consultation with our Treaty partners and iwi, to see what the impact of this type of legislation is going to be on them, because we all accept that Māori are overrepresented inside our criminal justice system. I’ve got my own views on that, and they relate to social investment and going right back into people’s lives, getting right alongside them, and trying to make sure that they don’t come into our criminal justice system.

But it’s interesting that the officials have said, “Although there was no consultation with Māori on the proposals in the Bill”—so there’s been no consultation—“due to time constraints,” because, again, this legislation has been rushed through, and we all know that when you rush through legislation, you don’t always get a good outcome. “Officials consulted with relevant government agencies and analysed proposals in this Bill against the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Crown’s Treaty obligations. Officials have identified strong Māori interests in some of the proposals, particularly those which target gang activity. Māori are likely to be disproportionately affected by the proposals, as they are both more likely to be gang members (three quarters of known adult gang members in Aotearoa are Māori men) and the victims of gang harms. Furthermore, the fundamental rights involved necessarily impact the relationship between Māori and the Crown. As such, the proposals potentially support the Crown’s duty to actively protect Māori from harm, while potentially undermining the principle of equity.”

So their own officials have actually come back and reported that there are big issues around this bill as relate to the Treaty of Waitangi obligations. I just find it incredible—maybe if the Attorney-General is in the House, he can stand and take the call on this, because he’s definitely been consulted properly, and he has reported on this in terms of consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But maybe the next Labour speaker could take a call and explain to us why there has been no consultation with Māori on this bill. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The hits just keep on coming tonight. This is another strong bill from the Labour Party to try and do some more in this space, and it’s really interesting to see the responses we’ve seen from those opposite tonight.

So what does this bill, the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, do? In addition to the legislation already introduced relating to proceeds of crime, this bill does five main things: it addresses gang conflict, it addresses the issue of convoys, it looks specifically at the firing of weapons, it seizes cash, and it also targets watches, jewellery, and high-value goods. It goes straight for the guts in terms of crippling organised criminal networks in New Zealand, and it works in unison with the legislation that we’ve already introduced tonight.

So the first one: new targeted warrant and additional search powers to find and seize weapons from gang members during gang conflict. This requires a warrant and is “on reasonable grounds”, as well—so a new, additional tool to enable police to have more ways of targeting organised criminal activity explicitly in the space of gang conflict.

Number two: convoys. This expands the range of offences where police can seize and impound cars, motorbikes, and other vehicles. In this space, it’s important to note that there have been instances where we’ve had those areas with convoys, and this particularly identifies and provides police with new powers where there are large groups of gang members who travel together on the road and often involve high-risk and illegal behaviour such as dangerous, and even reckless, driving.

Number three: up to five years in prison for a new offence of discharging a gun with intent to intimidate. So this is providing a new way of charging, in addition to what already exists under Arms Act offences, when there is an intention to intimidate.

The fourth one is that police and other enforcement agencies are able to seize cash over $10,000 when found in suspicious circumstances—so specifically giving police additional powers for seizing cash when found in particular, given circumstances.

And the fifth one targets watches, jewellery, precious metals, stones, motor vehicles, boats—are all added to that list of high-value goods and those prohibited for sale in cash over a specified value.

This is part of a suite of measures that this Government has introduced to give police the tools that will enable them to respond to the current issues in and around gang conflict and the wider harm caused by gang and related criminal activity. You know, when you hear Mark Mitchell finding his latent discovery of love of the Treaty of Waitangi, that the National Party is on thin ice on this ground, because we have come in strong. We have put in some really strong measures that will equip our front line to not only address those emerging issues that we see around New Zealand but, on the other side, part of the other side to the response that this Government has delivered is also strengthening Te Pae Oranga, also in terms of providing better wraparound support for our young people who are coming from a background of either family harm or multiple complex issues, to try and provide that wraparound support and give those young people all the help that they need to make the right choices in life. This is done alongside the legislative tools that will be supported in the wider package, right across Government, that tackles the causes of gang participation and reduces offending in the long term.

I am really proud to be part of a Government that delivers a comprehensive response to a complex problem, and I commend this bill to the House.

I think Ginny Andersen, the previous speaker, was being a little too generous to her colleagues about being part of a Government that’s responding effectively to a significant rise in violent crime. I don’t see that in the same way, because what we’ve seen over the past five years that this Government has been in power—five years. It’s worth just remembering about that—five years. We’ve heard many speeches from the other side of the House going on about the National Party’s record, but for half a decade—

Hon Member: What!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —this Government has been in place—

Andrew Bayly: Half a decade.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —half a decade—and over that period, we’ve moved from a situation where New Zealanders, on the whole, felt safe in their communities and in their homes and in their shopping centres and on their roads. Yeah, there are always problems, but there was a sense that the justice system in the broadest sense was working effectively. Over five years, we’ve undermined that to a state that this country now feels that the situation is more or less out of control, and you can’t now feel confident in going to the local mall in Auckland—whether it’s St Lukes mall or down to 277 in Newmarket—that there won’t be some kind of smash-and-grab with a bunch of people turning up with hammers and crowbars, causing mayhem, and knowing that they’ll get away with it, and then you can’t be sure that there won’t be a large gang convoy driving past on motorbikes intimidating the countryside.

We often think of New York and places like that where there’s always sirens wailing in the background and the sound of a chopper overhead, but that’s what Auckland feels like at the moment. There’s always the sound of a chopper overhead chasing somebody and there are always sirens wailing away, and what we’re seeing is a very significant increase in gun crime in our city and people are worried about that. This year, there have been very significant numbers of shootings in our city, and New Zealanders are, rightly, worried about whether this Government has the wherewithal to get on top of it.

So what we see in this legislation—which we’ll support. We’ll support it at this first reading and it will go off to the select committee and we’ll work our way through the issues raised by it. But, essentially, what we’ve got here is a grab bag of ideas and suggestions that enables the Government to look like it’s doing something but without really having thought through the broader issues and having a clear and coherent response to violent crime and serious crime in our communities.

If you look at the big issues in the justice sector broadly—if I was to characterise the four big issues that we think we should be focused on—first, it’s dealing more effectively with this serious and violent end of crime. What has the Government done so far on that? Well, what it has done is it has repealed the three-strikes legislation. What it has done is it has looked at the situation, seen the rise in gang violence, seen the rise in gun crime, and seen the rise in ram raids and smash-and-grabs, and what’s the conclusion that it has come to? The conclusion that it has come to is that we’re too tough on our worst criminals—we’re too tough on our worst repeat criminals in this country—and we need to reduce sentences for them because we’re too tough on them. That’s been the one conclusion that they’ve drawn, and so they’ve repealed the three-strikes legislation. It’s a very bizarre conclusion to come to.

Then, having done that, they’ve come to the House and they’ve said, “We’re really going to deal with this. We’re tough on crime and we’re going to introduce a bill which makes a new offence out of discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate in a public place.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of too many circumstances when you would discharge a firearm in a public place without intent to intimidate in a criminal setting—I mean, most people would find that reasonably intimidating. I suppose if you were firing a cannon to commemorate the death of the Queen, it might be one example, but in the gang context, I can’t think of too many situations where a gang member would discharge a firearm in a public place which wouldn’t be intimidating.

But, anyway, they’ve repealed the three-strikes legislation. They’ve come to the conclusion that we need to be softer on our worst repeat violent criminals and that they need to be in prison for shorter periods of time—that’s their broad conclusion—but, at the same time, in order to look tough, they’ve rushed in this legislation here tonight with a couple of ideas that will enable them to say that they’re doing something. But, really, their hearts aren’t in it, and that is the issue.

So when we run through the issues that have been raised in this, it’s about this new problem of discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate—well, OK. That sounds good. It also provides a new warrant for police to search and seize weapons—some little tweaks there. Yep, OK, we’ll have a look at those. It expands the power of police power to seize and impound vehicles where we can expand the empowerment power to include dangerous and reckless driving where no injury or death has occurred—well, OK, that’s fine. OK, yep, that’s something we should look at. There’s a new cash seizure power for police when they find $10,000 in cash in suspicious circumstances so that they can seize that—well, OK. Well, that’s good—OK, we’ll look at that.

But the point is that you can just see what was going on in the Cabinet with Kiri Allan. She came in. We had Kris Faafoi as Minister of Justice, who took the job and then decided that he didn’t seem to really like it any more and he wasn’t paying much attention, and Kiri Allan has come in as the new Minister.

You can see the sense of that: “Oh, my goodness! We’ve been in power for 4½ years. Serious crime has gone like that, gang membership has gone like that, shootings in Auckland have gone like that, ram raids have gone like that. Oh dear, we’ve got a problem. There’s a sense of disorder and we need to do something. What are we going to do? Oh, that’s right, we’ve just reduced sentences for our worst repeat offenders. That’s been the one thing we have done. Oh my goodness, we need to come up with something. Officials, come on, find us something.”, and somebody came up with the idea of “Well, we could make a new offence out of discharging a firearm in a public place in an intimidatory manner. That’s one thing, and then, if we find $10,000 worth of cash, we can make a new seizure power for police.” They cobbled together five things and said, “There, we’ve got a law, and so we look like we’re doing something.”

Well, that, I don’t think, is a very effective way to deal with what is a serious problem facing our communities and our streets and our cities and our towns and all of New Zealand, where we’re worried about what has been this breakdown in law and order. It’s a rushed, ad hoc approach to dealing with the problem.

The second area is around youth crime, which is clearly not being dealt with effectively at the serious end. When you’re dealing with ram-raiders and smash-and-grabbers, sending them off to a family conference, patting them on the head, and saying “You shouldn’t be doing that. We’ll see you next weekend when you’ll do it again, and we’ll have another little family group session.” is not an effective way of dealing with the problem. The thing on everybody’s lips—all the dairy owners and the people working in the malls—is that there are no consequences for these kids, and we need to actually use some of the tools that we have available to us, whether it’s in community service, whether it’s home detention, or whether it’s youth facilities, and actually sheet home some actual responsibility for what are significant crimes.

The third area is dealing with the efficiency of the court system. That’s something that the Government hasn’t been really focused on and needs to be focused on, because taking months and years dealing with court cases is not helping anybody. It’s putting lives on hold. The fourth area in the justice area—which is another topic entirely, but I won’t trifle with the Speaker by going too far in this direction—is dealing with our electoral laws and standing up for and asserting the equal voting rights for all New Zealanders.

But coming back to this issue here, around dealing more effectively with the rise in violent crime and gangs, this is a modest and ill-thought-through and rapid step in the right direction. We don’t know what the consequences of it will be yet, and so it will be very important to go through this with a fine-tooth comb in the select committee process and to hear from people who are affected to make sure that this piece of legislation doesn’t have unintended consequences, of which there are very high risks therein.

So we will be voting for this bill. But we do so cautiously, and we just wish that the Government would actually come up with a clear, coherent, consistent, and well-thought-through plan to deal with what are significant issues facing our communities and our streets and our cities.

大家好。你好, Madam Speaker. I was one of the members who spent a portion of this evening talking about the National Party’s record—or perhaps better put, lack of record—in terms of addressing community safety in this space. Perhaps what’s more concerning is the way in which the National Party addresses this important area for New Zealand. They react; we respond. We understand that to respond, you both need to give robust tools to the Police as well as better pathways to young people: keeping them in school; keeping them in education; putting wraparound services around them when they need it, including counsellors; and keeping them fed at school as well.

It’s a pleasure to take a call in relation to this bill, tonight, which in many ways is the sister bill of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill that we also passed through first reading this evening. The two bills do sit together, and they show this Government’s strong commitment to addressing organised criminal activity.

I do want to acknowledge comments made by the Green Party member Golriz Ghahraman in relation to the previous bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, and other members who spoke of us needing to be cautious as we head into select committee to assess the bill of rights issues that are relevant here. Of course, whenever we are creating new search powers as this bill is doing, we need to consider the implications of section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which guarantees “the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure”. The touchstone that sits behind that right is the reasonable expectation of privacy against intrusion by the State. So we need to ensure that when there is greater intrusion, there will be greater justification. At the moment, we are seeing significant public justification and significant compelling public-interest arguments on the basis of being able to investigate offending, the need to recover tainted property, and the ability to protect community safety. But we do need to carefully consider these factors as we head into select committee, which I do look forward to doing. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What can we say about this, the sister bill, apparently, of the last one, which was to do with tainted property. And we hear this word “tainted” being thrown around again with this bill. It doesn’t really have a legal definition; normally, in the criminal justice arena we talk about someone being accused of a defined crime with a defined role in that crime, but here we see a group of laws coming through that are reactionary and do little by way of being tough on crime.

The toughness that we want, I would think, is on crime—not on random people that we might have somehow screened or seen as being a threat without having been accused of a crime; which these laws don’t require, apparently. So there’s a little bit of this—and I do agree, strangely, with Mr Goldsmith when he says, “Firing a firearm for the purpose of intimidation”; you know, that bit. That bit seems to come as part and parcel of firing a firearm in public—yes, that’s true, that’s bad, and we should criminalise something like that. It turns out it is already a crime, so this isn’t adding a whole lot more.

But the thing that worries us in the Green Party is that we are selling, apparently, as a Government, this idea that lowering due process standards, lowering the standards of rights in New Zealand, and allowing for the police to just go out on fishing expeditions for people that they randomly believe might be bad is somehow keeping communities safe. Well, it isn’t. It can’t, because we’re not pointing to anything in particular that someone’s done wrong; we’re pointing to people by association. We’re pointing to property that has to be seized because it’s tainted. This vagueness breaches the principle of legality. You have to be able to tell that you’ve done something wrong before you can be sanctioned for it so harshly—to seize property, to have your rights to be free from search and seizure protected, these are values that a democracy should hold incredibly dear.

Today, we saw our police force lying about crimes being committed in order to investigate different crimes. And this loosening in the way that police conduct themselves comes from indications in this House that it’s OK that we can have a dishonest police force. We can have a police force that’s armed, so to speak, with all sorts of amorphous powers that you don’t even have to accuse someone of a crime based on evidence, let alone prove it.

To take away their property? That isn’t going to keep the community safe, because we are not even alleging a crime. What is an associate? Well, I know what an associate is from my experience in the courts, where often we’d get an opposition to bail form that would say “gang associate” and then someone would stand up and say, “What’s the evidence of this, sorry?” and the judge would have to say “What’s the evidence of this?” and the police prosecutor would have to say, “Well, his cousin is in the … ” Is that what we’re talking about here? Is that the Government’s response to crime? We know—because we’ve had two full independent inquiries last term into our police force and our criminal justice system—who this will turn against, and it’s not necessarily the people that are causing the violence and the harm. It will be entire communities that are “tainted”, to use the language of these two bills, by prejudice.

We know that those constituencies, those communities, are also the communities that are less likely to report crime, because they have been targeted over and over again by that same police force; they have been harassed, they’ve been searched. We only ever see an unreasonable search and seizure case reported where there is a crime. Where are all the other cases? Where are all the other harms of a community that’s constantly targeted by vague law and broad police powers that don’t do anything to actually target crime, to prevent crime, to keep anybody safe?

We know from the evidence what does keep communities safe. What keeps kids out of gangs is accessible mental health care; inclusive education; it’s drug and alcohol treatments that are available and accessible; it’s affordable, warm, dry housing; it’s liveable incomes. Without any of that, making new ways for police to search people and take away their property, without having to point to a crime—that’s bad lawmaking. So we won’t commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill through its first reading to the select committee. The reason for that is for what this bill wants to do; it wants to address the harm caused by criminal activity, including that caused by gangs—finally—and it wants to make the community safer.

I also note, just as ACT did with the previous debate on the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, that this legislation is 16 months in the making. Now, it appears, after that 16 months, that this is another rushed piece of legislation. This bill has landed in this House for debate without the regulatory impact statement. Where is the cost-benefit analysis and the other considerations that should be a part of this policy? I mean, after 16 months of promises, surely it’s sitting in someone’s hard drive? Surely the Government did not make an announcement about an announcement and then made communities wait 16 months for an incomplete legislative approach? There is reference to this supplementary analysis report instead of the regulatory impact statement. I just found the supplementary analysis report on the Table down there, it’s just been made available. We can’t read it—it’s 88 pages, so it’s pretty hard to read and comment on it for this, the first reading, but at least we have it.

So, on that basis, while ACT likes what we think the Government is trying to achieve, we will support it through to its first reading to select committee where we can—along with the other Act—delve a little further into its details; the missing details, the unread details, delivered in a rush. I’ve heard members from Labour across the House say that these two bills that have come before us are part of a smart game, so to speak—it’s about being responsive rather than reactive. Well, I would have thought a smart game would be to make sure that the correct legislative process is put in front of us all so that while we say on this side of the House that we support, we can continue to do so because we understand it fully.

Now, let me talk to the legislative changes that this bill will include. It’s changing the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 so that there is a new warrant power to search and seize weapons during a gang conflict—quite like that idea. There’s also a new seizure power for cash that is found in suspicious circumstance—over $10,000—and allowing that to be forfeited, along with powers to hold seized assets, including cash, for 28 days with two rights of extension upon application to the court and allowing for appeal. What concerns us is that suspicious circumstances are not actually defined, and it would appear that it would end up with a person having to prove to police why their assets were not brought in a suspicious manner, instead of the police proving that it was a suspicious circumstance. We’d like to just delve a little bit further into that once we get to the select committee stage.

The Auditor-General also noted that the $10,000 asset seizure was a bit too low, and we have had discussions amongst the House where the Minister of Police actually talked about whether or not there should be a threshold at all. The ACT Party says we need to be consistent with these thresholds. We’re looking at the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, which we’ve just heard, and it talks about a $30,000 threshold—that’s there. Once we start playing with those thresholds we have inconsistencies. We know that when police do their raids and they find cash, drugs, and guns, quite often it’s over the $10,000 value of the cash that has been seized.

Another point is the adding to the Crimes Act 1961 by introducing an offence to discharge a firearm with intent to intimidate. And I wonder, why on earth do we have this here? It’s already in legislation. Section 48 of the Arms Act specifically has an offence for discharging a firearm, an airgun, a pistol, or a restricted weapon in or near a dwelling house or a public place. And if it’s discharged, without a reasonable excuse, as to (a) endanger property; or (b) endanger, annoy, or frighten any person. The difference here is that the penalties are not matching those prescribed in this amendment bill, and I wonder whether or not this is just virtue signalling, saying we want to actually create a law; in actual fact, the law’s already created. It’s already there; why aren’t you using it? Why have you not amended the penalties to be consistent? Why are you trying to make yourselves look—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

NICOLE McKEE: Sorry, Madam Speaker. Why is the Government not looking at what we already have in place and actually utilising it and being honest with the community about what laws are there and how you would look to seek to improve those, and use those, instead of creating more legislation?

Another part of this bill is about prohibiting cash payments over specified amounts for certain high-value goods. It requires a change to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. We look forward to hearing submissions on that.

Another one is the response to the gang convoys, allowing for the impounding of vehicles. However, I note that this will also apply more generally to other drivers who drive dangerously or recklessly, and that is of some concern to us. But, once again, the Land Transport Act already has rules to impound, so why not use it? It’s just like the Arms Act, where the Government is trying to signal that they have spent 16 months working on a piece of legislation that is recreating the same laws that are already in place amongst other areas of law.

These two bills that have just come before the House need to have some consistency with each other if they are indeed to be related to each other as sister bills, and at this stage there are some inconsistencies between the two. ACT do look forward to fleshing these out through the select committee process and encourage people to submit their views on what this bill will mean for them, especially those that will be affected by the criminal activities and the loss of their proposed income. In that respect, ACT do support this bill through its first reading.

谢谢, Madam Speaker. As I rise to speak briefly in support of this bill, I would just note that it is a piece of a puzzle. As my colleagues have already discussed, it is the sister bill—and don’t you enjoy the feminisation of the language, as we go into the week after the 129th anniversary of women’s suffrage? This is the sister bill to the previous one we discussed, which was the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill. Now, it’s been suggested that this is knee-jerk legislation rather than part of a fairly carefully worked-through scheme. I would refer the House to the full range of responses that we are putting forward to the long-standing problem of gang violence in New Zealand, violence that has its roots right back throughout my lifetime and even earlier—right back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth!

The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, which we’ve already discussed, sets up this civil regime and closes some loopholes in the tracing of the proceeds of crime. This bill is different. It does close some loopholes, but—quickly—it sets out a new targeted warrant and additional search powers to get weapons from gang members during a gang conflict. This is a time of heightened tension between gangs, when violence and public disorder become more likely. We then expand the range of offences when we can seize and impound cars and motorbikes, particularly when they’re being used in gang displays of intimidatory driving, if I can put it that way. We also have closed the loophole on discharging a weapon with the intent to intimidate. At the moment, the only bit you’ve got of that legislation is discharging a weapon with the intent to intimidate people in a house. Now, we’ve widened that, and that is a useful thing to do—and it’s a five-year sentence, like the other one.

Finally, we have—and this does relate straight back to the previous bill—enabled the police to seize cash over $10,000 found in suspicious circumstances. And, when we say cash, we also have included valuables, jewellery, watches, precious metals, gold bars—I’m beginning to sound like an Indiana Jones movie—as well as the motor vehicles and the boats, which have been added to the list of high-value goods prohibited for sale.

Now, these are matters—true—where we need to take care. It is absolutely necessary to protect human rights and to restrict unreasonable searches, and I look forward to giving that our full attention in the Justice Committee. I commend this bill to the House.

Simon O’Connor, five minutes.

Thank you very much; that’s probably a great joy to the House that it’s only five minutes. It’s halving by each speech. The next one will be 2½ minutes.

National does support this bill, the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, but this bill is merely window dressing. We are seeing a spike in crime that we have not seen, arguably, for a generation—if not generations. It’s the amount of ram raids, the discharging of firearms, the disrespect for police officers, the disrespect for the public—it is, in itself, criminal, and the consequences are just not there. Let’s be very, very clear from this side of the House: we don’t believe there are sufficient consequences, and that’s both on a punitive front but I would also want to make the argument very clearly, particularly for those listening at home, that the National Party also believes “How do we intervene to try and change the lives, particularly of these youth offenders?”

What we have here is a Government that’s brought, tonight, two bills that all look rather decent and amazing. Hey, this is a Government, supposedly, that’s getting on with the job. But, actually, as we have teased it out through two debates tonight, we see that actually these are bills with very little substance. They don’t really go all that far and, in many ways, they’re just echoing elements of law that we already have. They are tweaks; they’re only tweaks.

As with the last bill—actually, the first point: this is an omnibus bill, which raises the question why we didn’t actually just put the proceeds of crime bill that we just discussed inside this omnibus and just make it one bill. Of course, the Government didn’t want that; they wanted to make it look like it’s two great, dramatic bills. What is, though, consistent is that, just like with the last bill, there’s basically been very little to no consultation with the public, and I want to put it on record again: no consultation with iwi Māori.

Now, that’s fascinating because, again, the left of the House make a big, big deal of always engaging mana whenua and iwi, hapū, whānau—everyone—but not on this. The Greens and others—it will be fascinating to hear from the Greens on this, because they’re all for consistency that Māori should be engaged, and rightly they should be. But the Government’s ignored that.

Look, a couple of things—and colleagues have been going through—one of the provisions of this bill is a new warrant power for search and seizure of weapons during a gang conflict. I’m going to be slightly facetious because it is this time of night. So that’s great—it’s great that we’re using the Search and Surveillance Act—but as it is, it’s during events where there is a gang conflict. I might just suggest to the Government that you don’t really need surveillance powers when gang members are firing firearms out in public; it’s pretty damn obvious.

Secondly, there’s a search power for cash found in suspicious circumstances and believed to be over $10,000. Well, a couple of things: I think, generally, anyone carrying cash these days is suspicious; most of us use EFTPOS cards. Secondly, I’m not sure how one believes something to be over $10,000; it sort of is or it isn’t. And, thirdly, with rampant inflation in this country, how is the Government going to make sure that the $5 I have in my pocket today—not because of inflation—is going to end up over $10,000?

Continuing on a slight facetious side, there is now a new offence of discharging a firearm with the intent to intimidate. Rightly, as Paul Goldsmith pointed out, that’s pretty much ipso facto, but I will admit, flying in a Huey over Baghdad, I was wondering whether fathers celebrating their daughters’ 21st birthday, firing their guns into the air, might have clipped me. Fortunately, they did not. But this is New Zealand and not Baghdad, so we don’t tend to do that with firearms.

And, finally, they’re going to change the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. I mean, really, if we’re going to do plain English, we’ve got to get shorter titles to bills. But, importantly, it’s going to prohibit cash payments, as Dr Henderson pointed out. She also rightly pointed out it’s not just money; it’s jewels, valuables, and so forth, which, of course, raises the question—which I am sure is on Andrew Bayly’s mind—will the Government ensure that Gib board is also included, as part of this, as a high-value item at the moment?

So, look, slightly facetious. These four elements; they’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with them. But I think for the general public to particularly understand: this is but window dressing. It’s really just an attempt for the Government to look busy. But let me make this one little guess—speculative guess, to make sure I roll out the 21 seconds remaining—this will make no difference to the crime that’s happening on the ground. The gangs will continue to intimidate. They will continue to drive along Tamaki Drive. They will continue the ram raids. The youth will still be smashing into the Michael Hill Jeweller’s and so forth, because these laws do not go far enough.

Tangi Utikere—five-minute call.

大家好, talofa. I want to make a brief contribution in support of this bill this evening because it is about having more tools available in the toolkit for our police and others out in the community and, as others have already said this evening, this bill is in tandem with the previous legislation that passed its first reading this evening.

The bill itself does create new offences, but it also creates some new enforcement powers and opportunities available to the police. It hits gangs and organised crime where it matters most in terms of profits along the way. In terms of those new enforcement powers, they exist for a range of different pieces of legislation. One of which, when I look through the list of Acts that the bill will change in some way, is the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012. Now, this is a piece of legislation that I am very familiar with because prior to entering Parliament, for more than five years I was authorised by the Attorney-General as an issuing officer under that Act to consider applications for search warrants and production orders and to issue those warrants or orders with conditions, time frames—such as that contained in this bill—for the execution of those warrants and those orders, if appropriate. Now, some of the powers that are proposed to be exercised in this bill will be exercised once a warrant has been issued. What’s interesting to note for members is that the reasonable grounds for suspicion are still required when considering whether the application should be granted, so in my view this is a balance between the police having those tools but also respecting the democratic process that citizens also have to ensure that that statutory threshold continues to be met. It’s something that the select committee will no doubt consider as part of this process. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. This will just be a brief call. I spoke on the previous bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, in which I’ve heard tonight there’s a connection between the two pieces of legislation, and as I said in my introductory comments to the previous bill, they apply to this one also. This was one of our manifesto commitments in 2020: that we would do a range of things to ensure that our communities are safer. I’m proud of the work that we’ve done to increase our front-line police officers and to extend things like to Te Pae Oranga, the iwi community liaison panels, which we have in our communities, but also the recent announcements about the Better Pathways Package that aims to place more young people in education, training, or work to drive down youth crime.

When I think about this one, I do come with experience, unfortunately, from my electorate where I have seen the type of behaviour that this bill is proposing to address. I have seen the convoys. I have seen people being prospected with new Harley-Davidsons. So I do think that by the introduction of this range of measures, I hope—I am more optimistic than the previous speaker from the Opposition—that it will start to drive some changes, because we will be hitting them where it hurts the most, and that is the profits in their pockets and with the tools that they use to recruit.

I do want to note one interesting thing about the bill, and that is it will also apply to non-gang members. The majority of these proposals will apply to non-gang members as well, although the new search warrant powers will only allow police to search the property of members of a gang which is actively involved in conflict or those who are not gang members but who are actively encouraging and assisting the conflict. I have heard recently that, unfortunately, there are people in our community who are licensed gun holders who are supplying gangs—you know, they obtain them legitimately, but what they are then doing with them is really concerning. So it is intended that the tools that the police are given in this legislation will extend to those people if they are caught in that act, because they can be feeding those tensions which we are seeing.

So the introduction of new search warrant powers; the ability to do more when we’ve got gang shootings; as I mentioned before, the gang convoys, where we often see high-risk driving and illegal behaviour; and the prohibition of cash transactions over $10,000 for specific goods, which I can see quite clearly would be things like the motorcycles, but also we’ve got the suspicious cash there. So, I don’t intend to take any further time. I look forward, as a member of the Justice Committee, to receiving this bill and to hearing submissions on it. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ve been enjoying this debate this evening, and I thought I might bring a little bit of reality to it. Look, if we could just change the law, then all this bad crime would stop, no? Does anyone actually believe that? We know it’s not going to, don’t we? What we do want to do is to actually make it easier for law-abiding citizens or people in New Zealand to be able to live their lives without having their property smashed, their jewellery stolen, and to be intimidated. We want to give the Police the lawful support from Parliament—or most of us do, anyway—to go about their job.

I’ve been listening to the Labour contributions with extreme interest, because I was actually the Minister who brought the original Search and Surveillance Act—or Bill as it was then—through to Parliament and through the third reading. Despite some very nice comments—recorded in Hansard—by the former Labour MP Charles Chauvel about the way that I tried to work with the Labour Party to come to a compromise, no, they would not support the Search and Surveillance Bill. No, they would not, nor would the Greens—no one expects that the Greens are going to, and that’s perfectly fine because no one expects it—nor did, by the way, the New Zealand First Party. Just have a look in Hansard. I’m happy to help anyone with that should they need to find themselves. But actually it was National, ACT, which then had one member, and United Future with their one member, who brought through the search and surveillance legislation which the Government is now seeking to amend to give new powers—a new warrant power to search for and seize weapons during a gang conflict. I’m not quite sure how that can’t be done right now in the heat of battle and everything else. I would have thought it was already able to be done, but I guess under this Government, Police seem to have lost the mojo by so much they basically can’t come out and make a decision to go off and just go after it, because they know or they fear they will not be supported by the Government.

I guess one of the things I find interesting is this new seizure power for cash found in suspicious circumstances and believed to be over $10,000. I think they’ve probably got enough power now, but if the Government says that this is the answer to all the things and it’s going to sort it, that would be great, too. We also have the inclusion of a new charge of discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate. I think discharging a firearm without lawful purpose would probably be already illegal in the Crimes Act. I would have thought so. The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009—oh yep, another one of mine—by prohibiting cash payments over a specified value for certain high-value goods. It’s good to know that the gangs will no longer be able to buy their Harleys; they’ll have to steal them. I really do think the Government needs to think this stuff through. Yes, I understand what they’re trying to do. Yes, we agree with the intent. Do we necessarily think this is going to make a scrap of difference? Not really—not really.

And then we have the Land Transport Act to extend the circumstances in which vehicles can be impounded to respond to conduct that occurs during gang convoys. Oh, I think we all know about that one. That was during the COVID lockdown when the rest of us were complying with the law and gangs had taken over certain motorways because they had tangi or some other sort of event that they were at and they were beyond the law. Well, if we over here or even they over there on that side of the House had all gone out on motorbikes or in cars and we decided to drive down in convoy, I can’t imagine how fast it would be for us to be stopped, asked for our licences, asked to have our cars impounded, because obviously we’re under the influence of something to have done that. And yet here we have: “This new legislation’s going to be all tough on crime.” It won’t make a scrap of difference, but we’re happy to see it go to select committee.

We’re happy the Government has now woken up to the fact that the public do not like to see gang leaders going in to have meetings with Cabinet Ministers in the Beehive. I think the only thing that stopped Harry Tam from coming in for his little meetings with Willie Jackson was the COVID lockdowns, and that seems to have been about it. And yet nothing in here about not paying gangs, not continuing to pay them, to fund them, and to apparently address the harm that they’ve already caused. Nothing in here about victims. It’s nice to know that there is now, after five long years of failure, an understanding that maybe things are not what they’d like them to be. It’s nice to hear from some of the members opposite who’ve talked about their electorates and how gangs have been prospecting for young people. It’s the same in my electorate and the same in other people’s electorates. That’s what they do, because the criminal gangs are inherently bad—otherwise they wouldn’t be criminal gangs. I think we see the intimidation that occurs for members of the public when we see them taking over the roads with their motorcycles, whether they paid cash for them at the friendly shop or else they stole them. I think we see that. It’s already there.

This is not going to stop that. What is going to stop it is the Government backing the Police. And that’s not going to happen until there’s a change of Government next year. It’s just not going to. They need a Police Minister who will stand up for them, not make excuses and say, “We’re going to get a report.” How about just stand up for them for a change? Why is it that the Police have to do what they have to do to just try and find people who are on the run—well, they weren’t even on the run; they were just lawfully going around in Northland, having been sent there by one Government department and allowed there. All the kerfuffle from the Government: “We’re going to get a report.” Well, the report should be about why they gave these innocent women a pass to go through and then expect the Police to go and pick it up while Northland was held in lockdown—for how many days, someone remind me?

Hon Mark Mitchell: It was 11 days, wasn’t it?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: 11 days—11 days. And who does this Government blame? They listen to a mainstream-media person who says, “Bad police did this.”, and they jump on that and say, “Well, we’re going to get a report.” Well, how about getting a backbone? How about get a spine? How about thinking about the fact that these men and women in New Zealand Police have to go out every day and night and 3 o’clock in the morning and pick up the pieces of drunken and drugged violent offenders in their homes? They have to go in there and do that, and the last thing they need is a wussy Government that goes around having those discussions with the gangs.

I heard the Police Minister talking about Police operational matters last week, claiming and crowing about some work the Police had done. I don’t see him out there claiming and crowing about the everyday work that police officers do in their jobs. They don’t get the big $10,000 cash payments that we’re talking about here, and nor should they. They don’t get that because New Zealand Police are renowned for being the Police who take corruption extremely seriously. But one of the ways of continuing down that path of not having corruption in our police force is to back them, to build their morale, and to build their professionalism. So instead of the constant harping and backstabbing of the Police, how about supporting them?

So this bill goes some way to saying the Government is putting its hands up and realises it made a mistake. And, of course, we in Opposition, in National, are not going to play the stupid games that Labour played in Opposition, where this sort of legislation—these are serious infringements on people’s normal human rights to go about their business. So there’s got to be a very good cause for it and there’s got to be some very strong measures in there to make sure that it is the right thing to do and that it is balanced on the side of doing the right thing. We’re not going to play games with it, unlike Labour did in the search and surveillance debate, where they talked about what they wanted, they got most of what they wanted, and they said, “Oh, sorry, it’s not quite what we want, so we’re not going to support you.” When it comes to these matters of serious changes to people’s legal rights, then there should be widespread support across the parties and Parliament. Otherwise, it can be easily changed very quickly without anybody giving a thought to it.

But it’s nice that there’s been a come-to-Jesus moment for the Labour Party on the search and surveillance legislation. I’m pleased to welcome them into the fold of actually, just occasionally, hearing about law and order.

谢谢 and talofa, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to rise as the last speaker for the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, first reading. I stand in support of this bill, as this will assist our police in the work that they do. I first want to acknowledge the hard work that they and their teams do in our community. I have three area commanders in my electorate, the northern part covered by an incredible inspector, Scott Gemmell; the central part by Inspector Joe Hunter; and also my southern part from Inspector Joe Hunter. It’s always a good thing when we do have meetings with the different area commanders in my area and the neighbourhood policing team, to discuss matters and targeted areas where some of these criminals are doing their activity. I know some of these tools would definitely help them in the work that they do.

These are targeted measures. We’ve all heard about the five measures in place, and I just want to highlight three that will do incredible work in my area. One of them is the motorbikes and vehicles and impounding cars, because we see a lot of these conveys, we see a lot of these young folk who jump on motorbikes and do crazy things down the road on Great South Road. It is not good, not only for themselves but also for other drivers on the road. So community safety is paramount. One of the other things is discharging the gun and doing drive-bys in our area. It is absolutely horrendous. It is no good for our community, and not only for that but for the targeted houses that they do: the neighbours get sprung with all these bullets. It’s a good thing that we can put this new offence there, up to five years in prison, and I hope that we can use that a lot more.

Also, I see on social media a lot of these gang members splashing their cash, making it rain on TikTok, and I think the police intelligence could use some of that social media to make sure that they’re targeting those gang members using these social media platforms.

All of these measures are intended to make sure our community and our whānau are well looked after, and I commend this bill to the House. Fa‘afetai lava.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee