Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. I would like to acknowledge, first of all, my colleague Todd McClay for bringing this bill to the House. He is a member of the National caucus, obviously, and the reason that a bill like this is generated is that the National caucus in support of our Government is focused on making New Zealand a safer place for all Kiwis. He also understands his electorate very well. We have seen examples in the House of earlier speakers who appear to be out of touch with their electorates; he is not. He understands that there is a real issue with gangs, not just in Rotorua, not just in his electorate, but nationally.

I would just like to talk about one of my first contacts with gangs. It was as a police dog handler working in Rotorua. Those who have lived in Rotorua, either as the police or even just as residents and members of the community, will be very aware of the old Mongrel Mob headquarters on Sala Street. When I first started there we had two young ladies come to the police station obviously in a terribly distressed state. In fact, one of them probably to this day has not recovered from what she had to endure at the hands of the Mongrel Mob at their pad on Sala Street. What had happened to them is that the Mongrel Mob had two young prospects and one of them was her cousin. As part of their initiation, as part of their pathway towards earning a gang patch, they had been instructed to entice these two young girls—15 and 16—down to the gang pad. Once they got them down there, they then proceeded to put them on what the gang members called the block, and they were gang-raped by patched gang members and the prospects were forced or encouraged to rape them also.

So I just want to be very clear, when we are in this House and we are talking about gang patches, that we actually understand clearly what a gang patch means and what it signifies. What it means is that when you see a gang member walking around patched up with a gang patch on, it is telling you, it is telling us, and it is telling the rest of the people in the community that they have committed crimes against us, and that they have probably committed violent crimes against us. They have made impacts on and affected people, victims who will probably never fully recover. So when a gang member walks into a Government building or walks into a premise wearing a gang patch, what he is really doing is telling everyone that he has committed crimes against us and he is prepared to continue to do that.

I just want to talk about my own electorate as well, because in my electorate of Rodney we have the communities of Wainui, Waitoki, Silverdale, Hibiscus Coast, Ōrewa, Pūhoi, and Warkworth. They are generally good, solid, law-abiding communities. But we are not immune to gang problems, and we have gangs called the Headhunters and the Hell’s Angels, which are both extremely active inside our communities in Rodney.

I want to acknowledge our police leadership, actually. I would like to acknowledge our police area commander, Scott Webb; the guy in charge of our Criminal Investigation Branch, Detective Sergeant Brett Batty; and the sergeants who run the stations, Bede Haughey, Mark Ovington, and especially Sergeant Kellie Bissett. Kellie is the sergeant in Wellsford and she has a team of nine up there. She is working very, very hard to try to put as much pressure as possible on the Headhunters, who have arrived in Wellsford, who have set up a pad, and who are committing crimes, actually, not just in Wellsford but throughout the whole electorate. Her team is actually using a cross-governmental approach. They have got the council involved. The council is supporting them in trying to apply as much pressure as possible to those gangs to try to get them and push them out of the area. I take my hat off to them and I want to acknowledge the great work and the service that they are providing to the people of Rodney.

But the thing that we are doing down here to help them is we have got Todd McClay’s bill in this House. It is passing through this House now and it will give them another tool. It will allow them to take action against a patched gang member when they walk into, or when they are present in, a Government building. In fact, I was up there with them 2 weeks ago. Their biggest complaint, I think—the issue that was swirling around at the time—was the fact that we had just celebrated our Anzacs, and at their dawn ceremony up there they had had patched gang members, Headhunter gang members, turn up to the Dawn Parade. They wished, actually, that this bill could cover something like that. Unfortunately it does not, but that is what they would have liked to see. I am not saying that anyone cannot turn up to a Dawn Parade, but I tell you what, I do not think that it shows a lot of respect to our veterans, past and present, to have patches arrive when all a patch says, as I have said, is that those patched members have offended and caused harm in the community. That is not what our Anzacs went offshore and fought for. That is not what they stood for.

There are just a couple of other things before I finish that I would like to address. One is this: Mr Goff got up and said that currently there are laws available to deal with gang members who decide to wear their patches and intimidate people. He quoted the Trespass Act. Well, what happens with the Trespass Act is that someone has to trespass a gang member, and I am telling you now that people are intimidated. Who is going to stand up and say: “I am going to take a step and I am going to trespass someone.”? We are removing that from them. We are removing the intimidation and fear from that person with this piece of legislation.

The other thing is intimidatory behaviour. Yes, that is right. That is a very good piece of legislation that the police have available to them, but what it requires is a physical act of intimidation. So what Mr McClay has done with his bill is he has allowed the police, and given the police another tool—and let us be clear. In his speech he said this is not the silver bullet—this is not the silver bullet. This is not the panacea. But it is a step in the right direction in giving the police another tool to be able to put pressure on gangs. What it allows the police to do is that they do not have to worry about a member of the public having to make a trespass complaint. It means that they do not have to worry about whether the actions being taken fit within the current legislation for intimidatory behaviour. It allows the police to come in and say: “Remove your patches and don’t wear them around members of the public.”

I would like to finish just by saying that we did hear many submissions. There is one submission that I do want to refer back to. It was made by Jacob Te Kurapa, from Murupara Area School. Murupara, of course, is in Mr McClay’s electorate. Murupara has got social issues that it is constantly facing and tackling. It has a big gang presence down there with the Black Power, the Tribesmen, the Mongrel Mob. In his submission he said: “Children and students do not need to see gang insignia plastered about our school they need to be protected from it. The introduction of gang insignia into our premises would create tensions and unnecessary negative behaviour and we want to discourage that type of behaviour from our school.” He wants the ability to protect his students, to give his students one place where they are free from the intimidation of gangs.

I know for a fact that in my own home electorate Kate Shevland, the principal of Orewa College; James Thomas, the principal of Whangaparaoa College; David Macleod, the principal of Mahurangi College; and Francine Bennett, the principal from KingsWay School, would all welcome the ability to prevent having gang patches in their schools and around their students.

There is one other point that I would like to make. It was brought to my notice by the Hon Chester Borrows and it is a very good point. Mr Goff said that the gangs are not worried or concerned. If the gangs are not worried or concerned about this legislation, then why did they spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to defeat it against the Wanganui District Council? If they are not worried about it, then why have they got their two-bit lawyers turning up to our Law and Order Committee to make submissions on their behalf? Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. It is an honour, I have to say, to follow the wise and sober discourse of Mr Mitchell. New Zealand First is proud to be in support of this bill. It is a fine bill. It is a fine member’s bill from a fine and honourable member indeed, and we are pleased to be able to offer the member, Todd McClay, our wholehearted support for his bill as it traverses its way through the House and into law. If we have any quibbles about the bill at all, it would perhaps be only to express the reservation that the bill does not go far enough. New Zealand First would like to see the banning of gang patches altogether, along with gangs themselves. But we accept the member’s bill as it stands on its own merits, and we are happy to support it as far as it does go.

Perhaps this bill will be the first of many, the first of a line, the beginning of a process of law by which the scourge of gang culture, gang behaviour, and gang criminality is erased from New Zealand life and society. We hope this bill will become the inspiration for courageous Governments in New Zealand to take up the challenge of ridding the nation of the menace of gangs altogether, following the lead already established by state Governments in South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales in banning outlaw gangs outright.

We do not agree with the positions of the Labour Party and the Green Party with regard to the potential effectiveness, or, in their estimation, the lack of it, as far as this bill and its ability to curtail the intimidatory activities of gangs and of gang members is concerned. We believe, rather, that this bill will serve as a very useful and welcome tool in the range of resources available to the police, when it comes to dealing with gang members. We do not accept claims by other parties and by some submitters that sufficient and suitable measures, such as trespass notices, are already available to the staff of Government agencies as a means by which gang members in their patches can be excluded from such places.

Trespass notices can only be imposed after the fact. The terms and conditions covered by them are very specific, and their enforcement is limited by the ability of complainants to correctly identify the named individuals in question and the allocation of available police resources, based on the perceived degree of risk. Staff at Government agencies should not be placed in the position of having to make such calls and decisions, especially when threat or menace may be present. It is, after all, the menace—the deliberate and intentional menace—accompanying the presence of the patch that this bill seeks to remove.

Staff of Government agencies should not and must not be placed in that position, and once this bill is passed into law—this fine bill, which will become fine law—they will not be forced to be subjected to the stress and discomfort of the threat and the menace that a patch encompasses. Rather, it is the gang members themselves who will be living under threat. The tables will be turned by this bill. It is the gang members who will have to spend their days looking over their shoulders, wondering at every turn whether the police are watching, whether the building they are about to enter is one covered by the ban, or whether they may in fact be better off leaving their ridiculous rag patches at home rather than displaying them like a target on their backs.

Mr McClay’s bill is the beginning of a process. It is the beginning of a change in New Zealand society, a sea change, a shift in attitude towards criminal gangs and the place they have held in the nation’s psyche these past four decades or so. Time was that the gang patch was something to fear, and it still is, and for good reason. The patch signifies someone who has offended against society and against one or more individuals. The patch is won by a gang member who has committed a sufficiently vile crime to have earned the twisted respect of the fellow reprobates and moral perverts with whom he associates.

Gang members have imposed a measure of caution on the rest of society through the promotion of their willingness to engage in violent and criminal behaviour. No longer. Through this bill the tide will begin to turn. In time, and not much of it, society’s attitude to gangs will change from one of caution to one of derision. In the near future the patch will not say: “Look at me. I’m a tough guy. Fear me.” Instead it will say: “Look at me. I’m a criminal, an idiot, a loser, a coward who can’t stand alone on my own two feet, who needs 20 or 30 or however many other like-minded criminal losers around me to make me feel like a tough guy. Pity me.”

The patch will be reviled, and its wearers will be rejected by society and apprehended by the law. Patches will be seized and destroyed, shredded and burnt, indeed crushed, as the gangs themselves will come to be, by the weight of public opinion and the power of this, the people’s Parliament, to pass this bill and enact this law, and others that I am certain will follow. We will see gangs banned outright in this country. This bill is the beginning of that journey.

We note the concern held by the Labour Opposition that there are some inconsistencies in the bill. Indeed there are. Some of this is unavoidable. Covered footpaths, for example, can be included in the bill’s ambit but not uncovered footpaths. Bus and train stations may be included if they have a shelter incorporated, but not otherwise. The Labour minority view in the select committee’s report comments that swimming pools are included but not playing fields. This is because Mr McClay’s bill specifies premises as being the places from which gang patches will be excluded. A premise is defined in the bill as somewhere that has been built; it includes a structure of some kind.

In the light of this and as a measure both to clarify the extent of the bill in order to allay some of the concerns raised by my erstwhile colleagues from the Labour benches, and, of course, to attempt to extend the reach of the bill as much as is possible within the constraints intended by the sponsoring member, I have suggested to the honourable member Mr McClay that perhaps the definition of premise could be amended to include an area defined by or included within a suitable structure, such as a fence. This would, of course, bring playing fields quite sensibly within the ambit of the bill.

It is my intention to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper to this effect at the Committee stage of the bill, and I hope and trust that the sponsoring member does not feel that I am treading on his toes by doing so. I would like this to be seen as a gesture of cooperation, and I would hope that the member and his caucus would view it in that light. New Zealand First favours consensus politics wherever possible, and we like nothing better than to work constructively together with other parties on matters where we share common ground and compatible values. Mr McClay’s bill is certainly one such area of common purpose.

In the select committee on which I sit, some members and submitters contended that the removal of patches by gang members, voluntarily or otherwise, would have the effect of making them harder to identify. That may be so, but it will also have the effect of making it harder for those gang members to draw on the so-called power of the patch and its ability to intimidate. This can only be a good thing, in our estimation. Indeed, some gangs, notably some of the motorcycle enthusiasts, already, in fact, choose to be effectively de-patched most of the time anyway. But they are also less likely to be on Government premises and availing themselves of governmental services than some of their non - motorcycle enthusiast brethren because, unlike those gangs, most bikies do, in fact, actually work for a living along with undertaking their other extracurricular activities. In saying that, I am not suggesting that these mischievous biker boys are somehow less bad than other gang members; only that Mr McClay’s bill deals solely with Government premises and there have to be horses for courses.

In closing I would reiterate that New Zealand First’s only disappointment, if it could be called such, with this bill is that it does not go far enough. However, we fully accept that it is the member’s bill and this is what he desires of it, and we fully support him in that. Again, we hope and trust that this bill will be the beginning of a process culminating ultimately in the removal of gangs from the fabric of New Zealand society in their entirety. New Zealand First is very happy to support this fine piece of legislation, and we commend it to the House. Thank you.

I was very tempted, listening to the previous speech, to seek the leave of the House to give Richard Prosser my 10 minutes, but I will not. Firstly, I wish to—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, go on.

You would be bored by the end of it, Ruth. You would be bored by the end of it. Firstly, I wish to congratulate Todd McClay on bringing this bill, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, to the House. I can fully understand his reasons for doing so. I have been in Government offices when these patched gang members have arrived at the door. There is no doubt they are intimidating, and they intend to be. I have witnessed the unease of the people attempting to assist them, and I think this bill is an outstanding addition to the tool kit that will allow the police and our communities to lessen the impact that gangs have on our society.

I do not understand the vehement opposition to this bill by Labour and the Greens. They talk about what we should have done and what we should be doing. They have had years to do it in, and did nothing. They have also had the opportunity to put these great ideas into members’ bills; they have not done that either.

💬 Andrew Little: This is not one of our ideas.

I did not say this is one of your ideas. Your compatriots said it was one of their ideas.

I am going to concentrate on the intimidation factor as I speak tonight, as I realise that in itself this bill will not put an end to gang activity. It will not stop people joining gangs, it will not get them into legitimate work, and it will not prevent crime. It will be a disincentive to all those things, however. But, more important, it will make the lives of the people who work behind the counters in our hospitals, schools, Housing New Zealand offices, and other Government departments a little more pleasant as they deal with the requests of these people. It will make fellow parents of the local school a little more comfortable.

Surprising as it may seem, the Rangitīkei electorate is not immune to gangs. Odd as it may seem, I have schools in my electorate that have asked gang members to remove their gang insignia when they come on to the school grounds. Fortunately for those schools and the children in those schools, those gang members have complied out of respect for the school. Had they not complied, this bill would have given the school the ability to exclude them, forcing them to comply. I think that is a great opportunity for our community and great for all the law-abiding citizens of New Zealand. I do not think that it is in the interests of our young people to be exposed to the gang influence, and every little thing we can do to limit that exposure or the visual presence of gangs in our community is positive.

Mr McClay in his introduction talked of the gangs in Rotorua. I have first-hand knowledge of these people, and of the outstanding Rotorua police, who recovered my iPad intact from a Rotorua gang drug house. It had been stolen from my branded car—not a car with insignia—in the Taumarunui area. I think that just points out what a great job our New Zealand police do when dealing with these kinds of people. It is quite a challenge for our communities as well.

If banning the advertising and branding of cigarettes is going to have an effect on the number of smokers in society, then surely the same logic could be applied to this piece of legislation. I contest that the Opposition’s view, which is that this bill will not make a difference on that basis, is nonsense. We concentrate for a long time on banning things in this country, and we clearly ban them for good reason. I think exactly the same logic applies to this.

During the course of the select committee process on this bill, we had some very positive submissions. The Murupara Area School submission has been referred to at least three times now, even by one of the speakers in opposition to the bill. I would remind Mr Faafoi and Mr Goff that this bill does, in fact, have some teeth and it will make a difference. I do not believe that their communities have been done any favours by their opposing it.

Every activity that we undertake to make the activities of gangs a little more difficult makes a difference, and protecting people from intimidation is a very worthy ideal in life. It is akin to a dislike of bullying, as intimidation is, in fact, a form of bullying. Much has been said tonight about the measures contained in the bill, the naming of specific gangs covered in the bill, the way in which future gangs can be added, and the types of premises included in the bill, with a very clear definition of such, and I do not need to add to that further. Again, I want to congratulate Todd McClay and thank the fellow members of the Law and Order Committee, under the very capable leadership of Jacqui Dean, for the work they have done on this topic.

Gang issues in New Zealand will never be readily overcome. I do not think any of these issues with gangs that inflict misery on our society will be overcome, but every time that we chip away at their opportunity makes a big difference to our community. I congratulate Mr McClay again on bringing this bill to the House. I think it will do its little piece in impacting on the activities of gangs in our community. Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill and to add my voice to those who say this is a complete waste of our time. This is a bill for the inadequate and, frankly, the flaccid, and the armchair toughies who sit back in the comfort of places like this to talk at length about the horror of the gangs without actually wanting to do anything meaningful about it. This will do nothing. This does nothing. It is cosmetic. It is literally cosmetic. It is about dealing with the outward appearance of a gang member. It does nothing about the underlying issues and realities of gangs.

We all know about the reality of gangs, and if there is anybody in this House who knows more than Mr Sabin about gangs, I would be most surprised. He has been at the forefront of the war on the drugs that have been peddled and pushed and run by gangs for many, many years. He knows the insidious effect that many gang members have. He knows, as does Mr Mitchell, that the primary reason we have gangs and that they behave the way they do is that they are a criminal enterprise. They are an issue that we ought to take seriously. They are an issue about which we need proper laws, effective laws, and effective enforcement. They are also an issue about which we need other effective policies, too, because gangs flourish and come into existence at times of poverty, deprivation, alienation, and disillusionment. We actually need measures about those sorts of things as well, to go hand in hand with effective criminal response and criminal enforcement. But this bill will do nothing. This will do nothing for any of those things.

Mr Prosser talks about eradicating gangs for ever. Well, politicians have been talking like that in this country for the last 40 years—about getting rid of gangs, about eliminating them, banging them all up, locking them up, and treating them in horrific sorts of ways. That continued, of course, until we had a Prime Minister named Rob Muldoon, who decided, as part of his style of political leadership, to offer the hand of support, engagement, and understanding. He provided work for gangs to do, with State support. And suddenly it made a difference. Some gangs actually went down a path of the straight and narrow. But, since then, gangs have become a repository of criminal wrongdoing and criminal enterprises, and they serve no useful purpose, by and large. So when we think about effective remedies for the gang problem and those who would go around intimidating, bullying, acting like thugs, and upsetting the citizenry and the good burghers of Whanganui or of Leigh or any of other part of the country, then what would we do? The last thing we would think about doing is taking their jackets off them. That is not going to change anything, as it did not change anything in Whanganui, when it had its gang patch prohibition. All that did was send the gangs out of the centre of the city. They just turned up somewhere else and carried on in their same, usual ways. It did not change the existence or the presence of gangs, and it did not change their conduct or behaviour.

So what will this bill do? If this law can be effectively enforced—and there is real doubt that it can, because of the definitions, and because of the vague applications and the vague boundaries that are now defined within it—what is it going to do? It will shift the problem round. It will not address the underlying issue of gangs. The only thing that the bill, as reported back from the Law and Order Committee does—the principal change—is to add some Government premises, foremost amongst them being police stations, because, apparently, this bill contemplates the real possibility that police at the moment cannot manage their own premises to keep gangs out of them. Well, that is just patently ridiculous. That illustrates how silly this bill has become, that the principal change to it as a result of the select committee is to say that police stations must be covered as one of the Government premises. Well, that is plainly ridiculous. The other principal addition is the adding of the letters “MC” after some of the named gangs, because suddenly the sponsor of the bill has discovered that all these gangs that were listed in the original bill are actually motorcycle gangs, so we had better add something that stands for “motorcycle” after it. Most of them will be motorcycle gangs; some of them will not be. Some of them will be other things. But then there is a catch-all change to the bill that says that anything that kind of looks like it is named this way will be covered by it. The other interesting aspect to the bill, I note, is the power of the police to give chase to somebody wearing a nominated gang patch. In order to give chase, and before they can pull over a gang patch - wearing citizen, the police officer or the constable him or herself has to “… be wearing a uniform or distinctive cap, hat, or helmet with a badge of authority …”. That might as well be paraphrased into the word “insignia”. We need police insignia on the police officer before they can give chase and stop the citizen who is wearing a gang-patched garment on their person.

That illustrates again the fruitless nature of this piece of legislation, the fruitless nature of this bill, and it illustrates again that the Government, whether its members are bringing members’ bills in their personal capacity or on behalf of the Government itself—actually, if we had a Government that was serious about the gang issue, we would have a Minister here bringing legislation that would deal with the problem. But the mere fact that this is a member’s bill being brought in on a members’ day, an ineffective piece of legislation being brought in for ineffective purposes on an issue that is actually quite important, illustrates how serious or not this Government takes this issue and issues associated with it. If this was a Government serious about dealing with a gang issue, not only would we have effective and effectively enforceable criminal legislation that would deal with it but we would have a Government that was dealing with the underlying social issues that drive people to gangs and to gang activity. We would have a set of criminal legislation that would deal with gangs embarking on criminal enterprises—the sort of legislation that the Hon Phil Goff introduced when he was a Minister of Justice, legislation that deals with the power of gangs and the wealth and the assets they accumulate, and starts taking it off them, not meaningless gestures like this bill, which deals with the clothes that they wear, because that does not change their behaviour.

This bill does not change them congregating and aggregating as citizens with a criminal motive and a criminal purpose. It will do nothing about that. It deals with the clothes that they wear. Well, that is not effective at all. And then it requires the police and the Minister to be constantly in touch with gang activity and what gangs are around, because this legislation deals with nominated gangs. If there is a new gang—and they do spring up from time to time—then the Minister has to seek an Order in Council to add whatever new gang there is to the list, and the Minister has to be satisfied that they are a gang and that they are criminal and do all this sort of stuff. The Minister has to be satisfied that the information and the evidence are there, before they can seek their Order in Council. This adds an entire rigmarole to deal with a cosmetic problem rather than the real problem that underpins it.

A Government that was serious about criminal activity, the criminal fraternity, and criminal enterprise would bring a piece of legislation through a Minister who was genuinely concerned about it. It would bring a piece of legislation that was directed to dealing with criminal activity and giving the police the means and the powers to deal with gangs, not to just take their patch off them, chase them because they have got a patch on, or arrest them because they wear a gang patch. That will do nothing, because one of the other badges of honour—if I could use that pun in this context—of gang members is to accumulate a criminal record, to cause the police inconvenience, and to draw themselves to the attention of the police, force them to take them through the courts, and do all those sorts of things.

This bill will do nothing for the gang problem. It will be another feather in their cap if they are caught by it and they cause inconvenience and an unnecessary waste of resources for the police. It will be another feather in their cap. They will brag about it, talk about it, and boast about it, but it will not fix the gang problem, it will not fix criminal activity, and it will not stop the criminal enterprises that are gangs. So that is why we are opposed to this bill. It is a meaningless gesture that is on an issue that actually ought to be taken seriously and to have something serious done about it. We are opposed to the bill.

Andrew Little, Kris Faafoi, and Phil Goff should be hanging their heads in shame for coming to this House and arguing against this piece of legislation, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. What they are telling this Parliament is that the people out there in New Zealand who want to be kept free from gang intimidation and who want to be kept free from the threatening behaviour of gang members should not be protected by legislation like this, which will ensure that gang intimidation and threatening behaviour by gangs cannot take place in public places.

Those members over on the other side—and I include the Green Party members here—who oppose this piece of legislation are doing New Zealanders a disservice. They are doing New Zealanders a disservice, because New Zealanders want legislation like this. New Zealanders know that gangs are a huge problem in New Zealand, and they need to be tackled.

We know that Labour did not do enough. Labour failed. Labour let gangs run rampant around New Zealand, but this Government has passed multiple pieces of legislation to clamp down on gangs. This Government has put more police officers on to the streets of New Zealand, and more police officers into the hot spots where they are required. We have passed legislation that has clamped down on the likes of P, and we are seeing results.

We are seeing results that the Opposition never got when it was in Government. We are seeing results like crime rates at a 30-year low. We are seeing results where P is starting to disappear off the streets. This is another piece of legislation that will help with that situation. The Labour Party minority view, in the commentary on the bill, started off like this: “Labour has no truck with gangs with a culture that promotes, encourages, facilitates, or tolerates criminal activity collectively or individually among its members.” Never a more disingenuous statement have I heard. Never a more disingenuous statement have I heard, because nothing in the way in which they are planning on voting on this legislation and nothing they have said in the House today leads us to believe that they actually support that point of view.

The Greens are in a similar camp. They are not as strident as the Labour Party, but to quote Steven Rollo, who made a submission to the Law and Order Committee, and who just so happens to work for the gangs—he is a paid lawyer, paid to defend gang members—is appalling. To come into this House and quote somebody who acts in that capacity is something that I find appalling. I would not be listening to the lawyer of gang members, because that lawyer is coming to select committees promoting and defending gang activity.

Gang members and gang patches do not stand for anything good at all. The gang patch that a patched gang member wears stands for pride in what their organisation stands for, and that organisation is criminal. The gangs, sure, have an element of collectivity that some gang members benefit from, but predominantly gangs are causing crime. Gangs are intimidating New Zealanders. Gangs are threatening New Zealanders. Those very New Zealanders came to the Law and Order Committee. Murapara Area School has been quoted a number of times in this House so far. Todd McClay knows about Murapara Area School, because he is a good representative of his people. Murupara Area School told us that children and students do not need to see gang insignia plastered about their school, and they need to be protected from it.

The Labour Party and the Green Party do not believe that children should be protected from gang insignia. They are trying to say that they do not think the legislation is going far enough, but if they think something needs to be happening they should be voting for this legislation. Kawerau District Council also submitted to the committee. It is another area that Mr McClay represents, and he is a good member for that area. Kawerau District Council felt the need to put on record its views. Its view was around the fact that if you are to require council workers and public servants to enforce trespass orders and to serve trespass orders on gang members, then you are putting those very people at risk. The Opposition thinks there are enough laws at the moment to take action against gang patch - wearing individuals. Well, the very people who have to take that action and have to serve trespass orders on gang members feel intimidated. They feel threatened.

This side of the House wants to take greater action on crime. This side of the House wants to take greater action on gangs. The Opposition has told New Zealanders through the select committee process and through their comments in this House tonight that they support the gang members over the good, law-abiding members of the public.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: That’s rubbish.

It is not rubbish, Mr Goff. It is not rubbish, because I heard your speech. I heard you saying that this piece of legislation should not be passed. I heard what you had to say. Labour’s comments in its minority report say it supports New Zealanders, but, actually, Labour members are prepared to vote against the bill, and I find that hugely disingenuous.

I think that Mr McClay is the one who should be congratulated. Mr McClay is the one who is doing a good service for New Zealanders—his constituents know it and New Zealanders know it. This piece of legislation will be good for law-abiding people. Sure the gangs will suffer because they cannot wear their patches of pride, the patches they wear to promote criminal activity, but wearing those patches is what should be clamped down on. That is what the Labour Party members should be supporting. They should be supporting this bill.

This Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill reflects three truths: one, the economic policies of the National Government are a failure; two, those policies have led society to fail; and, three, that National over the last year or so has realised that looking tough on crime but weak on the causes of crime is a recipe for disaster. I see Mr Mitchell laughing away over there. I have got to say that I was bemused by that honourable member’s speech when he talked about the first time he saw gang members being when he was a dog handler. Well, it takes 5 years to be dog handler, so I wonder what that member was doing for those 4¾ years until he saw a patched gang member—unbelievable.

But let me expand. If National had been delivering effective and successful economic policies, we would have decent jobs for every man and woman who wanted to work. People would be able to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. They would learn the discipline and dignity of work. They would be able to raise their families in a dignified and well manner. But National’s policies rely on making a few people better off. Look at the chief executive officers of the banks who earn $5,000 extra a week thanks to National’s tax cuts, which the rest of this country has to pay for. Look at the Mighty River Power debacle, where less than 2 percent of New Zealanders are able to buy back what we already own. Meanwhile, we have 142,000 New Zealanders out of work, without the discipline or dignity of a job. Every week we come in here and we listen to that side of the House sprouting on about ghost jobs, because as they say in the provinces: “We can’t work your ghost jobs, bro.”

I am interested to see tomorrow’s Budget, because in last year’s Budget there we had the Hon Bill English talking about—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on a bill that is talking about gang insignia, and I ask the member to come back to the contents of the bill.

I am getting there, because what I am talking about is when is this Government going to stand up for children? In the Māori Affairs Committee we are doing a study on children. What is really appalling is that we look for aspiration in families. What we are seeing is that many children in towns such as Kawerau aspire to become a patched gang member. Something is seriously wrong with society when we have children in New Zealand aspiring to become patched gang members. This bill does not go anywhere near far enough.

On Sunday I was at Kawerau. I was watching children play sport. My own son and daughter were playing rugby league. Some who want to be gang members came up to me and they were screaming out for these children to hurt each other on the rugby field. Unlike some of those members over there, when I see something wrong, I stand up and say it. I said: “Shut up. How dare you come down here.” And then they wanted to heavy me out. It was quite funny really. They threatened to get their patched father to come and see to me, so I said “Well, go and get your patched father.”

💬 Mark Mitchell: And then you woke up.

This actually happened. I tell you what, I was struggling to wake myself up after hearing that member’s speech. You have got to work on your tonality a little bit.

I am prepared to stand up for children, as people on this side of the House are prepared to stand up for children, but what is that side doing for the children of New Zealand? I heard the honourable Todd McClay say that crime was down. Well, to that I say “Rubbish!”. Solved crime is down, police numbers and support is down, and police morale is down—it is at an all-time low. We have police officers leaving New Zealand hand over foot. There were 45 from Auckland alone last month. We have got police officers going to the Northern Territory. We have got them going to Queensland and Western Australia. We even have police officers working in security here—there are four of them. So who is going to enforce this law? I would say to these people on that side of the House to get out into the suburbs and get out into the provinces and see what is really happening.

I am going to support this bill, but I am going to support it because it is only a start. I would say to the honourable Todd McClay to go down—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.

I rise as the Green Party’s spokesperson on human rights to speak to the second reading of this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. To be perfectly honest—and I do not mean any disrespect to the sponsoring member, Todd McClay—I do need to say that I had hoped this bill would be scuttled in the Law and Order Committee, and I am disappointed to see it back here when so much of the evidence has shown that this bill is unnecessary. For that and for significant other reasons, this bill is unlikely to help people feel safer in our communities, and it is even less likely to address gang-related harm.

This bill says that it “seeks to restrict the display of gang insignia in the premises of departments of the public service, statutory entities, and local authorities in New Zealand.”, and it defines gangs as “the gangs listed or any included by regulation.” Further, this bill allows police to, without warrant, “arrest a person whom the constable has good cause to suspect” has displayed a gang insignia on Government premises, and “seize and remove gang insignia … that has been or is being displayed …”. It also enables the police “to stop vehicle[s] to exercise powers of arrest or seizure”.

The Green Party is not pro-gang. I am sure that all of us in the House have seen far too much harm surrounding gangs in all of our communities to even countenance the thought of being pro-gang. I will say, though, that the evidence suggests that our being anti-gang is not particularly helpful. What we support in the Green Party is evidence-based policy-making. I would like to reference—I did not realise my colleague David Clendon was also going to reference this—one of the submitters to the select committee, Dr Jarrod Gilbert. He is a lecturer at the University of Canterbury and an expert on gang culture and gang control. He gave very clear evidence to the committee that this bill will not work.

I know that members on that side of the House have scoffed at us referencing evidence and said, you know, “Here we go again with another academic reference.”, as if we are not based in the real world. I would like just to push back on that and say that, particularly on emotive issues, we need sometimes to take some distance in order to have and consider the views of somebody outside of the system who can look at all perspectives and guide us in what is going to be most effective. Dr Gilbert is such a person. He acknowledged the will and the intent of the committee in considering this legislation, and the hope that that committee had, surely, of minimising harm. However—however—he noted that this legislation was doomed to failure, just like numerous other laws that have been ineffective in this area. He gave examples of the criminalising of gang membership under section 98A of the Crimes Act, and the targeting of gang fortifications under section 695A of the Local Government Act. He noted that both of these laws have failed to have any discernable impact on the problems of gangs, and that both those measures have had to be amended because they were not working, and still are not working.

He recognised that at the time of the introduction of those bills, this House and those who were promoting the bills felt the same way that the member does and that that side of the House feels now. They were adamant that this legislation would work. They were hopeful; they had the best intentions. But the evidence does not stack up that this type of approach will make a difference. We care about protecting people in our communities. There needs to be a substantive answer to it, and this bill does more harm than it does good.

I am very pleased and proud to take a call in this debate and to support Todd McClay on this bill, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. It is not surprising that we hear that the Greens are opposing this, because New Zealand has got used to the idea that the Greens are very much a pro-criminal party—pro-criminal rights—so we know that they will not vote for this. But what does surprise me is the misjudgment that has come from the other side of the House with the Labour Party. Labour’s vote on this shows how out of touch it is with New Zealand. Other than the Labour Party and the Greens, I am not sure that we could find anyone out there in New Zealand society who would think that a gang member wearing a patch into a school or a Government building is a good thing. I can see the headlines in the Dominion Post tomorrow. I am just picturing what they may be: “Labour Party backs the gangs.” Possibly it would be: “Labour Party supports the rights of gangs to intimidate.” Possibly that is a little long. Maybe we should shorten it down to: “Labour stands behind organised crime.” I do not know. The Dominion Post, I am sure, will have fun with it.

As a former police officer, I was a detective for a number of years. I worked in the areas of undercover operations, surveillance jobs, electronic operations—the sort of stuff that those people vote against all the time. I saw and heard firsthand the disgraceful impact of gangs on New Zealand society. They exist for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to make financial gain from organised criminal activities. And what are they? Drug dealing tops the list, followed closely by prostitution, and let us throw a bit of money-laundering and standovers in there for good measure. They will pepper-pot whatever other crime they can fit in there, because gangs exist to perpetuate nothing but misery on the citizens of any country in which they exist.

Gangs are responsible for far more misery than most people will ever understand. In the year of 9/11, 3,000 people died in that terror attack, in that travesty that we remember and that has changed the world for ever. In that same year, 38,000 people died in the United States of drug overdose alone—38,000 people died of drug overdose. Where did they get their drugs from? Was it from the local Boy Scouts club? Was it from the bingo society? No, it was from gang members—gang members. Gangs exist for nothing other than to make money from the misery of others. They destroy society. They are like a cancer that is slowly devouring its host. For every member on that side and over there on the Greens side who sits by idly and does not vote for something like this, gangs get a little bit of a stronger claw-hold, and that cancer takes its impact that little bit deeper.

So what do gang members do to earn their patch? We have heard it from the Labour Party: “Oh, this’ll do nothing. It means nothing.” What do they do to earn their patch? Armed robbery. That is a nice starting place. They will pack rape to get a patch. Grievous bodily harm is a nice one to throw in there. That will earn you your patch—not you, Mr Speaker, of course, but a gang member. But if a gang member wants to go straight to the top of the pile in terms of getting a patch, they will kill someone. They will murder, and then they will plead guilty for that and they will earn their patch when they emerge from prison. It is a badge of honour. They will do anything to get it and they will do everything they can to prevent losing it. If anyone in this House doubts that, then I challenge them to go to a gang member and try to take the patch off their back and see what happens, because I have done that.

Phil Goff raised the point: “Oh, well, Government departments can do that now—they can do that now.” I investigated a young man who tried to do exactly that, and he had his face spread all over the floor of a public building because he tried to ask a gang member to take his patch off. So it is just completely unrealistic to suggest that they can do that now, because if they could, they would, and they cannot. There is a reason for that. It is because wearing a patch is about intimidation. That is what having a patch is all about. Patches are a tool of intimidation. That is why they do not have nice little embroidered pictures of their families on them, and things like that. They have crosses. They have skulls. They do have swastikas, Mr Goff. I am not sure which patched members he has been looking at. There is a reason that gang members wear patches, and it is to intimidate. It makes a bold statement.

What this legislation does is that it makes a more bold statement, and it will hurt gangs. They will loathe this legislation, and I commend the member for having the courage to actually bring it forward. They will loathe everything this stands for, because that patch that they have killed for, that patch that they have robbed and raped for, they will not be able to wear in Government buildings. They will not be able to wear it in schools. What does it do? It gives the police yet another reason to get in their face. And why is that? Because we should be getting in their faces. The police need these tools. This bill sends a message to gang members. It sends a very clear message that the community will not tolerate them. It sends a very clear message that this National Party—that this National Government—will not tolerate them, either.

What staggers me is that the Labour Party is so misguided in its judgment on this. I hope that the Dominion Post has a front page headline that says that Labour stands behind gangs, because that is what the Labour Party deserves. This is a good bill. I commend it to the House.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Law and Order Committee by majority be agreed to.