Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the author of this bill, the Hon Todd McClay. Obviously, congratulations to him on becoming our new Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health. I am lucky enough to now sponsor this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill and shepherd it through the House. It is a very good bill. I sit on the Law and Order Committee, and we were very pleased to receive it. I see that I have some of my select committee colleagues here tonight—Mr Goff and Mr Faafoi. I am sure I look forward to your contributions tonight, and I will be taking calls on the bill.

I would just like to run through the provisions of this bill very quickly and then give my colleagues an opportunity to speak. The main provisions of the bill are to prohibit the display of gang insignia in premises or departments of the Public Service, Crown entities, the police, local authorities, and schools in New Zealand. The list of named specific gangs to be covered by the legislation is to be futureproofed by allowing the Minister of Police to add gangs to the prohibited list through regulation-setting powers. The bill covers all signs, symbols, or representations commonly displayed to denote membership of, an affiliation with, or support for a gang, not including tattoos, and it includes any items of clothing to which a sign, symbol, or representation is affixed. It includes all offices, buildings, and facilities, both permanent and temporary, under the authority of the departments of the Public Service, as defined in schedule 1 of the State Sector Act 1988, and of Crown entities, as defined in schedule 1 of the Crown Entities Act 2004.

This is a very good bill. As Kiwis, as New Zealanders, we should actually be prepared to say that there is no room in this beautiful country of ours for gangs. Although this bill is not the panacea, although it is not the silver bullet, it does go a long way towards giving the police some additional tools to send a clear message to gangs, and that is that we do not tolerate them. Thank you.

Malo ni, Mr Chair. Can I begin just by acknowledging the new member in the chair, Mark Mitchell, who will shepherd this bill, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, through the House. He has taken over from, I believe, the Hon Todd McClay. I do want to say genuinely that he has approached us, even in the short time he has been in charge of this bill, in a genuine way to try to talk through some of the particulars that he has spoken about, in order to try to garner more support for the bill in the House. Unfortunately for Mr Mitchell, we are unable to do that.

I would like to take a couple of words he used. As he said, this is a lovely country, and National says there is no room for gangs. We would go a little bit further. I would like to use the words penned by the Hon Phil Goff, that Labour has no truck with gangs—Labour has no truck with gangs, at all—and especially with their culture, which promotes and encourages criminal activity. So we are absolutely opposed to the criminal activity of gangs, and, as we say, this side of the Chamber has no truck with gangs. That is certainly one thing that we do agree with Mr Mitchell on. However, we do believe, as Mr Mitchell said, that this bill is not a panacea, that it is not a silver bullet, and that it will not actually be effective in achieving clause 3 of the bill, which is the purpose clause. I am just going to flick to that clause very quickly. Clause 3 states: “The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the display of gang insignia on premises of departments of the Public Service, the Police, Crown entities, local authorities, and schools.” We do not believe that it will be able to achieve that, for a number of reasons. But we also believe that the power already exists within current law to achieve what this bill sets out to do.

If any member of this Parliament would like to take a trip to Porirua, even if you want to do it tonight, the front door of the Porirua Police Station has a sign on it that says that gang patches are not to be worn in that station.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Is that the one they’ve closed?

No, it has not been closed yet, Mr Goff. I just want to reiterate that these powers already exist, and in some way they are being expressed. They are definitely being expressed at my local police station in Porirua, where, I say again, there are to be no gang patches worn.

This bill, as it was first drafted, also had a number of anomalies. I will not blame Mr Mitchell for that, because it was not authored by him—it was actually authored by Todd McClay—but it did contain a number of anomalies, and they were that if there was a bus shelter on council land and you were wearing a gang patch, then that would be prohibited. But if you just happened to be standing on council land, on the sidewalk, then that behaviour would not be covered. I do want to acknowledge the New Zealand First MP Richard Prosser, who I understand has put in Supplementary Order Paper 253, which is an amendment to clause 4 relating to the definition of Government premises. In subclause (a) after “any structure”, Mr Prosser wants to insert “(including any associated grounds)”. I think that would—and I am looking at Mr Prosser—alleviate any anomaly that I have spoken about here, where we do not have a physical structure. The anomaly is that if you are in a bus shelter, you would be breaking this law, but if you just happened to be on the sidewalk or at a sportsground, you would not be breaking the law. I would like to congratulate Mr Prosser and the New Zealand First Party on putting forward that Supplementary Order Paper, which would certainly address the anomaly in the bill. I understand that New Zealand First is supporting the bill, but I guess from our perspective the anomaly in the bill as it stands now was one of the points that we made in our strong opposition, and I guess you must give credit to Mr Prosser for taking some action there and for making sure that that is covered.

Speaking again to the purpose clause of this bill, clause 3, we do not believe that this bill will make any significant difference to the real problems that the gangs create in our communities. We do believe that the bill exists for political purposes, and I guess you could say that because Todd McClay is now a Minister he has benefited from this bill being put forward. I also want to point out that under Part 1 we have some definitions, or at least a list, of gangs that will be included in this bill. Because of that list of gangs that is contained in this bill, there is going to be an onus on the police, I guess, to police those gangs. Given the pressure that our police are under at the moment, you are going to have to ask the question about how effectively they can do that. Mr Mitchell was in a very, I guess, calm Law and Order Committee hearing earlier today, but in the submission from the New Zealand Police, in terms of the police budget, we saw, in effect, from the police answers that over the next 4 years $113 million in real terms is going to be taken out of the police budget. So that is going to put our police and the resources that they have under huge pressure. I guess they are feeling the effects of that pressure already. To put this added responsibility on them to police this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill will be another onus on them, when they are already finding things very, very tough.

Can I just reiterate the words of the Hon Phil Goff that Labour has no truck with gangs.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Truck with a “t”.

Truck with a “t”; that is right. It is also our view that it would be far better to enforce the laws that already exist under current legislation to be able to take some effective action.

We did have a number of very good submissions at the select committee. I did want to point to one submission that was in support of the bill, from Murupara Area School, which I thought gave a very good submission. The school made two main points. It did not want its children and students to see gang insignia plastered about their school, and it thought that those kids needed to be protected from that. The school also made the point that the introduction of gang insignia into the school would create tension and unnecessary negative behaviour, and it wanted to discourage that type of behaviour in the school. I completely and utterly understand that, but what we on this side of the Chamber would say is that the law already exists for the school to prevent people with gang patches from going on to their premises. Just as it is with our police stations, schools that have problems right now have the ability to ban people with gang patches from coming on to their premises. So I would say to Murupara Area School that although it gave a very good submission on this bill and although it has serious concerns, the school actually already has the power to do what is contained within this bill. That was just one of the very good submissions that came to the select committee.

I wanted to say that I am glad the anomalies in this bill have been addressed. I want to say also that this bill will not address the drivers of the gangs, which are youth unemployment, an issue that this Government has not addressed, and also, I guess, when you look at the major gangs—they would be the likes of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power—you see young Māori and Pasifika. Unfortunately, they are a group of people whom this Government has forgotten about. You will see that in the high youth unemployment in both of those areas. I think it was Black Power that said that this Government was doing good things for its recruitment, because it is creating a lot of disenchanted youth. I think that is a very sad indictment on this Government.

I am going to wrap it up there, but, as I say, Labour has no truck with gangs. This is a well-intentioned bill, Mr Mitchell. We do not think that it is going to be effective. We think that the current laws that exist can actually do the job of what this bill sets out to achieve.

Can I first congratulate the member Mark Mitchell on assuming the chair for the first time.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: It’s like non-stop Skycity tonight, isn’t it?

The difference with Skycity, Mr Joyce, is that when John Key went to eat with Skycity representatives he gave them a golden handshake and a licence to print money by giving them hundreds of new gaming machines. When we went there, we told them we would be repealing that legislation and they would get no special treatment, and I stand by that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order!

I know it is not in the bill, Mr Chairman, but the gang of one over there, the “Minister of Everything”, is one of the guys this legislation, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, should be directed against. As I was saying, it is a real honour for a new member, and one so young, to assume the chair. Because it is his first time, we promised we would be gentle with him.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, we did not.

We did—we did, Ruth Dyson. I have a little advice for Mark Mitchell. You might not have seen many people in the chair, but there is a really important rule that in the Committee stage the Minister—or member—in the chair is to answer questions. So after each speaker, you should get up and address each individual point that they make, so that we can be sure that you are on top of the bill and you understand it. There is one other piece of advice that I would give him. This is not Mark Mitchell’s bill, so he is not responsible for it. The member in the chair should not feel obliged to defend the stupidity of the provisions in this bill, and that is at just about every stage of the legislation.

So with that piece of friendly advice to Mark Mitchell, I want to talk about the bill. You know, for Jami-Lee Ross to suggest that anyone in this House is in favour of gangs is patently dishonest, because no member of this House supports gangs, which exist for the purpose of promoting criminal activity. But I say to Jami-Lee Ross that what this country needs, if we are to be the fine country that Mark Mitchell talked about, is not phoney legislation that does absolutely nothing. We want some real legislation and some real resources for the police.

Jami-Lee Ross was one of the gang of four on the Law and Order Committee today who wanted to cover up the fact that this Government has cut police numbers in the last year by 446. There are 446 fewer police, sworn and non-sworn members, than this time last year. I say to Jami-Lee Ross and the gang of four National members who tried to protect their Minister—a real protection racket, intimidation at its worst—that if you want to do something about gangs, do not gut the police force. There are 446 fewer police personnel than this time last year. Not only are there 446 fewer police personnel—this is relevant, Mr Chair, this is very relevant, because what I am saying is that this legislation is unnecessary and phoney, and it does nothing, and I am enjoining the Government to do something real about dealing with gangs. So the first thing you do not do is cut police numbers by 446. The second thing you do not do is cut their funding.

We got information today that for each of the next 4 years the police budget is going to be cut. It is $20 million down in real terms this year—$20 million down in real terms. If you want to do something about gangs, why would you cut specific crime prevention services by $6.6 million? That is what the Budget does. It cuts specific crime prevention services by $6.6 million. And if you want to deal with the gangs, you do not cut the funding to specific crime prevention services. Then there is police primary response management. That is cut this year by $3.5 million. If you want the police to be able to deal with the gangs you do not diminish their primary response management. Then there are general crime prevention services. That is cut by $1.4 million.

The point I am making is this. We are spending time and millions of the taxpayers’ dollars in putting through legislation that adds not one single power to stop people wearing gang patches on public premises—not one single power. I asked the officials at the meeting, and Mr McClay and Mr Ross were there: “What extra power does this give to stop gangs wearing their patches in schools or public buildings?”. The answer to that was nothing—nothing!

Members opposite come to this House dishonestly to try to demonstrate they are tough on gangs, but this legislation adds no extra powers to the Government—no extra powers. Look, we have powers against intimidation. Gangs are intimidating by nature. We have powers under the Summary Offences Act. Section 3 says that it is imprisonable to use threatening behaviour. Section 4 says that offensive behaviour is a criminal activity. Section 21 says that intimidation is imprisonable. I tell the Government to stop pussyfooting around with legislation that does nothing, and actually enforce the laws that are there at the moment. I do not want to see gang intimidation in this country, and I do not want to see this gang in Government cutting police resources so they can do less about the way that gangs are behaving.

Then it comes to how workable this legislation is. You know, Mr Chairperson, you could be wearing a greasy jacket with a swastika on it—you could, yes—and you could go in to Work and Income and you would not be breaking the law. You could go in, you could salute, you could have a small Hitler moustache, and wear your swastika, and it is not against the law. But if you wear a gang patch, you can be arrested. I ask where the consistency is. If you are worried about intimidation, if you are worried about offensive behaviour—

💬 John Hayes: It’s “Mr Integrity”!

Mr Hayes is just back from his liquid dinner, so he is going to be very, very loud in the Chamber, I can tell that. He has got that silly grin on his face. But I say to Mr Hayes that he should take a call and explain to this House why it is that he could wear a swastika into a Work and Income office and not be breaking the law. Apparently, the member for Wairarapa, Mr Hayes, could go in to a Work and Income office wearing a swastika, but if he is wearing a gang patch, he is treated differently. I want Mr Hayes to explain this: why is it that if I am a gang member wearing a patch, and I am standing under the bus shelter, it can be an offence, but if I take two steps to the left and I am just on the side of the road, it is not an offence? So how is a constable going to know when to arrest that person if the person is standing with one foot under the bus shelter and one foot on the pavement? That is how stupid this legislation is.

It is an offence to wear a gang patch if you are in a swimming pool that is owned by the Government or the municipality, but it is not an offence if you go along and stand on the side of the league ground and watch a game of rugby league wearing your gang patch. This is a nonsense piece of legislation. I say to this Government that it should do the sort of stuff that I did, which was real—the Proceeds of Crime Act ripped out $7.4 million in the first 2 months from the gangs.

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Oh, listen to you. It’s all about you, Phil. Give it up, Phil.

Mr Joyce, you claim credit for that legislation; I introduced it. You only put it into effect after you came into office. It had all been done. Do things that are real. Do not come into this House with phoney legislation, pretending to be the tough guys, knowing full well that you are deceiving the public and doing absolutely nothing.

This bill is an empty piece of legislation that will make no difference. This is an empty, dishonest piece of legislation from a Government that is cutting the funding to the police and cutting the number of police officers. Mr Joyce, you are a Minister in the Chamber. Why has this Government cut the number of police officers by 446 in the last 12 months? No answer. He will not even look. He will not even address the question, because he knows that his Government has done that. It is cutting the police.

Government members broke their word to the select committee last year, and they are closing police stations—10 local police stations: eight in Auckland and two in Christchurch. They are cutting the police stations, and they are reducing the number of police officers on the beat—the front-line people. They are cutting the money to the police year after year after year—we saw those figures—and then they come into this Chamber and say they are going to be tough on the gangs. They are going to be tough on the gangs by introducing a piece of legislation that does precisely nothing.

So I have to say congratulations to Mr Mitchell on being in the chair. It is a tough bill to support, because it has no substance. We know he is just there doing his job, so we are not blaming him. I have honoured my promise—we have been kind to the member in the chair. But I have to say to the Hon Todd McClay that this bill is something that a member with nothing better to do with their time brings into the House, to try to pretend they are about substance when there is no substance.

I will take a call now because the last speeches from Mr Faafoi and Mr Goff are probably about as good as it will get—and that is actually a pretty sad statement to make. I was expecting a lot more than that in terms of input.

I just want to address some of the issues that Mr Faafoi raised, and those are in relation to whether this bill, the Prohibition on Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, is going to make a significant difference to how the police police and whether or not this is going to give them additional capability. Well, the answer to that, very simply, is yes it will. I have spoken to the House before and I would like to use an example from my electorate of Rodney—Sergeant Kellie Bissett and her team up in Wellsford, who at the moment are using a cross-governmental approach and also working with the local council in trying to put as much pressure on the Headhunters gang that has set up a pad in Wellsford. I have spoken to her about this bill, and she and her team are very pleased and very happy that it is progressing through the House and say that it is a tool that they will definitely use. If there is a gang member who goes into a Work and Income office or into a Government building or tries to go into a school, whether a public or an integrated school, it gives the police the power to go in there and effect an arrest—to arrest that gang member.

💬 Carol Beaumont: Can they do it under existing legislation?

The Opposition says they can do it now. Well, actually, they cannot do it now. I spoke with Mr Faafoi and Mr Goff about this today, because one of the arguments that they have put up against this bill, and it is not a good argument, is the fact that a chief executive officer—let us use Work and Income as an example—can issue a trespass notice against a gang member who goes into that premises. Well, actually that is true, but they cannot issue a blanket trespass notice to a gang. It has to be to an individual. The other thing that happens, once that trespass notice is issued, is that that gang member—and Mr Goff and Mr Faafoi keep making a big point about civil liberties—for the next 2 years cannot go back on to that premises.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Did I mention civil liberties?

Well, today in our conversation we were talking about this. They cannot go back on to that premises. What this bill says is that you can go in there, you can access the services like anyone else, but you cannot wear a gang patch. We have spoken in this House about what a gang patch means. A gang patch means that the person wearing it has had to offend against the community. That is the only reason someone is wearing a gang patch—no other reason. You cannot go into a retail store and say: “Hey, I want to get myself a Mongrel Mob gang patch or a Black Power gang patch.” The only way to achieve that is by committing crimes, often violent crimes, against the community. So I hope that addresses the point in relation to whether or not the police are actually going to see some value and whether or not this is another very good tool for them to have access to. The answer to that is clearly yes.

For some reason Mr Goff has gone on another tirade, and we witnessed that today in our Law and Order Committee. It was very disappointing, I have to say, to see Mr Mallard come into the committee and make a tacky attack on a deputy commissioner who is highly respected and has had a distinguished career. He had to sit in front of the select committee and have a tacky, low-grade attack made on him by Mr Mallard. In relation to our police, currently, our police force is enjoying the highest public support it has had in years.

The other point that I just want to make very quickly too is that we keep talking about this bill and whether the police are actually going to be able to use it. What I would say to that is that it is actually very, very clear in the bill where this Act will be enforced. But if there is any doubt, that is what we have case law for. The police are able to actually test this is in court of law, and that is where the decision will be made and clarity will be taken from.

The last thing I want to do is that I would just like to acknowledge Richard Prosser—I assume that he will take a call tonight—for the support for this bill and also for the very good Supplementary Order Paper 253, which has been submitted, around clarifying exactly where this legislation will take effect.

💬 Richard Prosser: Mr Chair.

I was almost going to call the Hon Bill Jeffries, but I see that it is actually Richard Prosser. I call the honourable member.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I will take that as a compliment. I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in this Committee stage of the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. This is a fine bill. This is a very fine member’s bill, initiated as it has been by one very fine member, Todd McClay, which has now been passed into the care of yet another very fine member indeed, Mark Mitchell. New Zealand First supports this bill. We are proud and pleased to be able to support it. We agree with the aims and intentions of the bill and we are very happy that it is going to become law. As they might say in the House of Lords in England, in that delightful turn of phrase that the British Upper House is wont to employ, we are most content that the outcome of this process will be the passing of this bill into law here in New Zealand.

I wish to congratulate Mr McClay again and for a number of reasons. I have congratulated him already in the earlier stages of this debate both on having the good fortune to have his bill drawn from the ballot and also on gaining the support of the House in terms of having the numbers to have it passed into law. But, of course, now that Mr McClay has taken up his new role as a Minister, convention dictates that he is unable to continue as the sponsor of this bill. He has therefore passed the baton to Mr Mitchell, and we are delighted to be able to work with the member for Rodney as he picks up the torch and carries it over the line.

This bill is a fine bill, but it is not perfect—not quite. There are, there were, and there remain one or two inconsistencies within it—just one or two anachronisms. One of these—perhaps one of the most obvious—is the reality that within the definition of “Government premises”, as the bill encompasses it, we are faced with the situation whereby buildings and structures are specifically covered but land and grounds associated with those buildings are not. During the second reading and before, Mr Goff and others rightly identified this discrepancy. A sportsground, for example, a sports facility owned or controlled by a local authority, would be in the position of having the bill applied to its buildings—its clubhouse, for want of a better name, or the pavilion or recreation centre or whatever structure is the centrepiece—but not to the playing fields outside. Similarly, a Government office or an office utilised by a Government agency would be in a situation where gang members are prohibited from wearing their patches inside the office, but no such prohibition would apply to the car park, for example.

For this reason I have introduced to the bill an amendment to clause 4 on Supplementary Order Paper 253, which seeks to include grounds associated with buildings and structures as well as the buildings themselves. In this it is my intention to enhance and improve the member’s bill as much as possible and as closely as possible within what I perceive and understand to be the intent of the bill. I do not seek to greatly alter the bill. We are acutely aware that this is, after all, a member’s bill, and it is important that the will and intent of the member be preserved. We do not seek to include lands and areas outside what we perceive the member’s intent to be. We are not talking about all public places or all public lands under the control of the Government. We do not believe it is Mr McClay’s intention to ban gang patches, for example, from public roads or beaches or national parks. That might be a good thing if that were to come about, but that, we believe, is another matter for another day. We do not seek to greatly or materially alter the direction or the intent of the member’s bill. Rather, we seek to enhance and clarify one small part of it. We hope and trust that the member and his party will see our intention as being in line with that. We hope, therefore, that the Government will choose to support my Supplementary Order Paper 253.

This, we believe, is part of the essence of what is required as far as constructive Opposition is concerned. The Government has the numbers to pass this bill with or without our support and with or without modification. This we know, and we respect that fact. So we are not seeking to alter it dramatically. Rather, we seek to enhance the bill, which we would support anyway, by addressing this one small area where we believe it can be improved.

In closing I would like to reiterate that New Zealand First hopes this bill will be the beginning of a process by which the gangs themselves are removed from New Zealand society. We congratulate the member, the Hon Todd McClay, on bringing it to the House. We welcome the stewardship that Mr Mitchell will now give it. We ask the Government members and the members of the Opposition to support Supplementary Order Paper 253 in my name and to support the bill. This will be a fine piece of legislation. We commend it to the House.

Kia ora. I am clearly going to express a somewhat different view from the gentleman who has just sat down, Richard Prosser. The Greens do not support this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. We see it having some good intentions behind it. We will not support it, because it will not work. It will not be effective in achieving the intended outcomes. It is another in a long series of one-off legislative attempts to deal with a problem that is not easily amenable to legislative solutions. The National Party actually knew that once upon a time, and I will return to that point a little later.

To work through the clauses of the bill—which is what the Committee is about, after all—clause 3, the purpose clause, starts off telling us: “The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the display of gang insignia on premises…”, as has already been referred to. One thing I will give this bill is that it generated a lot of interesting and, at times, quite entertaining conversations at the Law and Order Committee. When we started endeavouring to define “Government premises”, there was an interesting diversion about what the situation of an MP’s electoral office was, for example. Would that come under the banner?

But, more seriously, or shall I say less seriously, you get these slightly ridiculous situations, as have been referred to, where one can stand on a footpath outside a Work and Income building, or a public office of some sort, and that is OK. But if there is an awning above your head, then that is not OK, because that is part of the structure, you are therefore within it, and you are breaking the law. Labour members mentioned the example of a bus shelter. A gang member wearing a patch and sitting in a bus shelter is breaking the law. It is an invidious situation to put the police in, in fact. Somebody wearing a patch but otherwise minding their own business for the moment, not up to mischief, sitting in a bus shelter—any police officer witnessing that is obliged to arrest that person. That is just a ridiculous situation. So the whole debate about defining premises actually highlighted that this is not an appropriate or a practical solution.

Sadly, we will not be supporting the New Zealand First Supplementary Order Paper 253, on the same basis. By adding a car park to the definition of a premise, for example, it means a person wearing a patch while driving and parking their car, before they even get out of the vehicle, has broken the law. I do not believe that is actually the intention or the nature of the problem that this sets out to solve.

Similarly—and I think it is interesting—I do not believe that any other piece of legislation has ever before tried to define what a gang is. In this case, that is what this bill sets out to do. It lists 30-odd named gangs whose patches, insignia, etc., are banned from public premises. But it also sets up an opportunity for other organisations and other gangs to be nominated, added to that list, and added to the schedule. Again, we suddenly start tying ourselves in knots in terms of trying to determine what a gang is. We have had gangs in New Zealand for something close to 50 years. I do think it is interesting that nobody has ever tried to define a gang in legislation before. I think the difficulties the select committee has had in that sense just highlight, perhaps, why it has not been attempted before.

In order to add another group or another gang to this list, the Minister of Police must essentially be satisfied that the organisation or group proposed to be identified has two key characteristics. One is a common name or common identifying signs, symbols, or representations. The second is that its members, associates, or supporters, individually or collectively, promote, encourage, or engage in criminal activity. I have used the example before of NORML, the marijuana campaign organisation. It has very distinct symbolism around its organisation. It also actively encourages individually its supporters or even members—it does. It has one particular concern with the law, and that is the members do publicly smoke dope—J Day—once a year. On that basis, NORML could be deemed to be a gang and added to this list, which would be quite ridiculous, I am sure you would agree—with exceptions.

Let us stretch another only slightly longer bow. Greenpeace has very clear and obvious branding. We know if we see a Greenpeace symbol what organisation that is representing. If members or supporters, individually, of that organisation commit a crime—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am going to let David Clendon have another go.

Thank you, Mr Chair—good decision. If an individual supporter of Greenpeace, somebody who had occasionally flicked it $5, was found to be engaging in criminal activity, that would, again, enable that organisation to be defined as a gang, which, again, would be quite ridiculous. But we do have to recall that this is a Government that recently made it illegal to protest at sea in defence of its beloved mining, drilling, and so on agenda. So already you see that this bill does carry with it a considerable burden of anomalies, and that is a good word for the night, I think.

It actually is not as straightforward as one might think to define gangs. It certainly is not a simple thing to define the boundaries of premises. Equally, the various regalia and the insignia would be a serious challenge for people working in public offices to identify. A person walks in wearing a T-shirt or a jacket with a particular symbol on it—is it a gang or is it not? We looked at a number of photographs. You can go to many stores or look online and you will see clothing that looks very much as though it belongs to a gang, when in fact it does not. Inevitably—and Mr Kim Workman, in his submission on the bill, made this point—people who are falsely accused of belonging to gangs because they happen to have a certain item of clothing could have reason to get a little bit hostile about that. This could stimulate incidents of upset or incidents that otherwise would not occur, and we do not think that is particularly helpful.

At a more general level I made the point that once upon a time the National Government actually understood that one-off legislative solutions are seldom actually lasting solutions. You go back to 1997 and what was then the Harassment and Criminal Associations Bill. The Ministry of Justice made a very interesting commentary around that bill, which was a one-off legislative attempt to quell gang activity. The Ministry of Justice at the time said: “It became clear during the development of the [Harrassment and Criminal Associations] Bill that no single legislative initiative would achieve the desired result of reducing gang activity. A longer-term broader strategy to deal with gangs and their offending needs to be developed.” This is likely to involve action on a number of fronts, and to include measures that do not require legislation.

Gangs are a problem in this country. Public violence is a problem in this country, as is family and domestic violence. The solutions are not one-off little bits of legislation like this that seek to identify one particular circumstance. In the 1970s and the 1980s the National Party under Muldoon—and Todd McClay knows this—recognised gangs as a social problem. It came up with work schemes, politically exposed person schemes, and labour contracts for gangs, because the key to it, as the point has already been made, is that a great deal of the reason that people end up in gangs is that they are alienated. We saw emergent gangs in the 1950s and 1960s that did not mature, because the members of those gangs basically grew out of it. They played up for a few years, perhaps behaved violently, but then they got a job, they settled down, got a life, and the gang suddenly did not look quite so attractive any more. That cycle broke in the 1980s. Now we have long-term, embedded, multigenerational unemployment, and that is the single most powerful driver of gang membership. Solve the unemployment problem and the gang problem will drastically diminish—much better than any one-off piece of legislation. Thank you.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to correct the stupidity that we heard from the Hon Phil Goff just before. I call it stupidity because he was a failed Minister of Justice. He was a failed Minister of Justice. He likes to go on about crime and the police, but he was a failed Minister of Justice because, under his watch, violent crime went up by 47 percent. That is right, Mr Goff—violent crime went up by 47 percent. Then we heard from his friend Mr Kris Faafoi, who is also part of the Skycity caucus—actually, I think we can call them the Skycity gang within the Labour Party—who seems to be a defender of gangs as well. We have two defenders of gangs who stood up and argued against this bill, the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. They argued against this bill because they are happy for gang members to wear their gang patches around the place, around Government premises, intimidating people and causing problems.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Tell your Ministers to get on and do something about it. They’ve got all the power to do it now.

That is right, Mr Goff. Mr Goff likes to talk about what he thought we were not doing about crime. Well, actually, Mr Goff, you have got your numbers wrong, because 600 extra police officers are on the streets of New Zealand. There are 600 extra police officers out there dealing with gang members, and those 600 extra police officers will be able to help enforce good-quality law and order policies once this bill is passed.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: I seek the leave of the House to table a document from the Law and Order Committee today, from the Minister of Police, showing that the number of police officers is down 446 in the last year.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. The member is perfectly entitled to do that, and I will put it to the House. Courtesy would have dictated otherwise. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? Yes.

I seek leave to table a press release from the Minister of Police announcing 600 extra police officers in New Zealand.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? Yes, there is. The member can finish his contribution now—or try to.

💬 Kris Faafoi: Point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Oh, hang on, another point of order. The honourable member Kris Faafoi.

💬 Kris Faafoi: I seek leave to table the police estimates from this year, showing that there is going to be an effective cut of $113 million to the police budget over the next 4 years.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. I understand that they are already available to the House, so we cannot do that. I would just remind members on both sides—because it is 2-1 at the moment—that courtesy is contagious.

I want to tell the truth about the Opposition. I am going to tell the truth about the Opposition, because it is a supporter of gangs. Those members do not like to hear it but they are supporters of gangs, because they will not support this bill.

I am going to read out some comments: “… gangs [have] a culture that promotes, encourages, facilitates, or tolerates criminal activity collectively or individually among its members.” Those were words from Phil Goff. I just wish that he would actually believe in them. I just wish he would actually believe in them, because if he did, he would be supporting this bill.

This bill is a good piece of legislation—first drafted by Todd McClay and now being taken through by Mark Mitchell—that will help New Zealanders. It will help New Zealanders rid their communities of gangs. Mr Faafoi wants to sit up the back, smiling and laughing, but, actually, Porirua—where there are a number of gangs operating—would benefit hugely from this piece of legislation. Rather than listening to Phil Goff, he should listen to Mark Mitchell. He should listen to Mark Mitchell and listen to Mike Sabin, because they know what they are talking about.

New Zealanders in this country do not want to be intimidated by gangs. New Zealanders in this country do not want to see—

💬 Andrew Little: That’s why they want a proper law to deal with it, not the monkey business in this bill.

I think Andrew Little must have been at Skycity too. He must have been at Skycity too. He is supporting his mates over there. New Zealanders do not want to be intimidated by gangs. They do not want people running around in the community with gang patches on. Gangs do not stand for anything good. Gangs do not stand for anything constructive. Gangs do not stand for anything law abiding. Gangs stand for a collection of criminals getting together and intimidating society and intimidating communities

💬 Hon Todd McClay: No, that’s a union.

Mr McClay says that that is a union, and that is probably not too far off. But this bill does not deal with unions; this bill deals with gang patches. It deals with the people out there who have nothing good to offer society. It deals with the people out there who want to intimidate society. I think Mr Faafoi and Mr Goff should tell us why people at a local primary school should have to put up with gang members walking around the primary school, showing young children what it is like to be a gang member. Why does Phil Goff think that it is OK for gang members to do that? Why does Mr Faafoi think that it is OK for gang members to do that?

Mr Richard Prosser does not think that—Mr Richard Prosser does not. He has actually got a good Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 253. Mr Prosser is doing something constructive. Mr Prosser has got a Supplementary Order Paper that we are prepared to support. We are prepared to support his Supplementary Order Paper because it is a good one that makes some constructive changes to the bill.

But the Labour Party members just want to stand up and rant and rave, get their facts wrong about crime in this country, and get their facts wrong about the National-led Government’s contribution to law and order in this nation, which New Zealanders are supporting and which New Zealanders are seeing the results from. New Zealanders are seeing huge drops in crime—a 16 percent drop in crime so far since we have been in office; the lowest crime rate in 30 years. Kris Faafoi and Phil Goff do not care about that. Under Labour’s watch, violent crime went up. Under our watch, crime is going down. Under Labour’s watch, the police were not supported. Under our watch, we have seen more police officers.

💬 Kris Faafoi: Ha, ha!

There are more police out there, Mr Faafoi, who are going to be supporting the community and helping to get rid of gangs.

I want to speak briefly and just finish off what I was saying about the problem with gangs in the community, and the reason why we need this bill. We heard some of the comments in the select committee about people who fear gangs and about people who see gang patches on a regular basis. Mark Mitchell and Mike Sabin have real-world experience out there on the street. Todd McClay has real-world experience in Rotorua of seeing the effects, the poor effects, of gangs. New Zealanders do not want gang patches. New Zealanders want to be safe. New Zealanders want to be secure. New Zealanders do not want to see gangs playing a large role in local communities. If it takes a bill like this, which is heavy-handed and which removes gang patches from our community, to try to tackle gangs and get on top of them, then that is what we need.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: It’s a powder puff bill.

Ah, Phil Goff says that it is a powder puff bill. Phil Goff did not do enough in his time in Government to deal with gangs. He has left it to us. We are seeing some good changes here. We are seeing a bill that will seriously deal to gangs, that will dent their ability to intimidate people, and that will dent their ability to go to schools and show schoolkids what it is like to be a criminal.

We support New Zealanders. We do not support gangs. Our friends in the Opposition might like to do that, but they are absolutely wrong. New Zealanders are backing this bill.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak again on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. Let me begin by congratulating the member in the chair, Mark Mitchell, on picking up the onerous responsibility of shepherding this shabby piece of legislation through this good House. I have great respect for the member in the chair, as he well knows. He has been given a difficult task. I would say that he has been given the short straw, but, nevertheless, he is there and I will have some questions for him shortly.

I want to make some comments about Jami-Lee Ross. I want to say a couple of things about Jami-Lee Ross. First of all, in the short time I have been in this House, I have seen him speak many times, and I have developed a considerable appreciation for the contributions that he has made. So often he has made worthy, sensible contributions, which is why it gets very difficult to explain why his contribution tonight was just plain dumb—just plain dumb. All he could resort to, on a bill that, frankly, is indefensible, was to allege that we in the Opposition—Labour and whoever else—somehow support gangs. We have been very clear and we have been on the record. We do not support gangs. We understand what gangs are about. They are about a criminal enterprise—

💬 Hon Todd McClay: Actions speak louder than words.

—and dumb members like Jami-Lee Ross and Todd McClay, who is now a Minister, of all things—his achievement for introducing a dumb piece of legislation is that he gets promoted to Cabinet—are patronising New Zealand and they are offering false hope. That is what this bill does.

When you have a look at Part 1, clause 3, “Purpose”, it starts with the purpose clause, which is that “The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the display of gang insignia …”. You can already do that just by putting a notice up on your premises. It does not have to be premises with a structure; it could be an area such as a park or a public river, a public area where people go. You could put a notice up that says: “Gang insignia not allowed here—prohibited”, and, if anybody turns up, you have got means of recourse. Here is my response to Mark Mitchell’s explanation that this is better than a trespass notice: actually, it is no different, because this bill will still require individual enforcement.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: The member hasn’t read the bill.

If the managers of the—

💬 Hon Todd McClay: Have you read the bill?

The member has read the bill only too well, has spent long hours studying it, and has spent half his time wondering how it is that a member like Todd McClay could be so stupid as to bring, and to waste the House’s time with, this piece of legislation. That has been the real point of curiosity, but I long gave up once I realised that he was not only a member of Parliament representing the National Party but, apparently, a financial member of that party. You just write it all off at that point and say no wonder—no wonder. But the point about this is that even with this legislation, it still requires individual enforcement. The manager of the structure, even with land associated with it—whatever Supplementary Order Paper 253 says—will still require notification to the authorities and notification to the individual bearing the gang patch in order to enforce it. It actually is no different. Qualitatively, it makes no difference.

In relation to Government premises, I want to specifically address Mr Prosser’s Supplementary Order Paper 253, which inserts the words “(including any associated grounds)”. Here is where I have some questions. What exactly does that mean? How close to, or far away from, the structure do the grounds have to be? Is it a question of proximity, or is it a question of contiguity? They are two quite different concepts. This is a meaningless Supplementary Order Paper to a meaningless bill. Listen, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig, and this is a pig of a bill, and this is the lipstick that Mr Prosser has added to it. It is the New Zealand First lipstick added to the powder puff of a bill. This is legislation from the make-up room—this is legislation from the make-up room; this is the problem with it.

I have another point too, Mr Chairman. I see your finger on the buzzer there. I have another point too, and that is about the definition—that is about the definition. There is an extensive definition of Government premises, but it excludes a number of critical things. It excludes children’s playgrounds, for heaven’s sake! So you are going to have gang members sauntering and wandering around the children’s playground, and the authorities can do nothing about it—the authorities can do nothing about it. Here are the Government and the Government members, puffing their chests out—and Mike Sabin has got a big one—and saying: “We are tough on gangs, and we will stop the gangs marauding. We will stop the gangs going to the public premises but not the children’s playgrounds. We’ll let the gang members, with their insignia, play in the children’s playgrounds.” Those members are not interested in actually looking after members of the public; they want to come to this House and give the pretence that they are doing something meaningful. They are doing nothing of the sort. That gives the lie to just how hopelessly inadequate this bill and its supporters in National and New Zealand First actually are. It is all about cosmetics—it is all about cosmetics. We have had the powder puff. We have had the lipstick. This is a cosmetic piece of legislation. It will do nothing.

It is not enough that they do not want to protect the young kiddies playing in the playground; this definition also excludes the beach. So you go down to the beach for your family picnic, and who turns up there with the Ford Fairlanes and the V8s and the gang patches? And you cannot do a blind thing about it—you cannot do a blind thing about it. On a sunny day, you take the family to the beach, and what happens? You can get marauded over by the gangs, and this bill will do nothing about it. [Interruption] Oh, the coppers! Oh, the sphincters are snapping now. What are the coppers going to tell their mates? What are the coppers going to tell their mates now? What is Richard Prosser going to say to his police mates? “Oh, sorry, brother—we mucked it up. We wrote a law, but it wasn’t good enough, and the gangs can still maraud around the children’s playgrounds, still maraud around the beaches.” And, what is worse, they can maraud around the mid-city parks. In the mid-city parks with no structures, the gangs can maraud around, and the police will be powerless under this bill. That is how silly it is. That is how dumb it is.

That is why Jami-Lee Ross’s contribution was so dumb, and that is why we are deeply opposed to the bill—it will do nothing. It will do nothing, and that is why, on this side of the House, we stand for meaningful law change—meaningful law that will deal with the gangs, that will stop the criminal enterprises, that will nip them in the bud, that will not allow marauding gang members, with their gang patches, to terrorise the kids, terrorise the beachgoers, and inflict their harm on people who go to the mid-city parks. This is a silly bill. We remain opposed to it. Nothing the members on the other side have said tonight, nothing the member in the chair has said tonight, has persuaded us that this will provide any meaningful impact at all on the gang problem. You know, the funny thing about it is this: the by-law that the Wanganui City Council passed was more effective than this legislation and more effective than it will ever be. It had the effect of shifting the problem out of the central business district into other areas, but at least the Wanganui City Council by-law talked about areas, not about structures and associated land. That is the difference. This bill will not make a difference. It is a dumb bill, a dumb piece of legislation backed by dud members, and we will vote against it.

How could that member—Andrew Little—seriously raise that issue in this debate on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, which provides police with powers to arrest gang members with gang patches? He talked about putting lipstick on pigs? Honestly, what is the member thinking? I am sure police out there will be horrified to hear the member making lipstick on pigs references in a bill that gives police powers to deal with gangs. [Interruption] Well, there you go—I am sure that is where the member was going with it. It is a fairly good indication of how the Labour Party is right off tangent. The lips are flapping—not something else that Andrew Little was mentioning—but the brain is not working.

Gangs exist for very, very few reasons. They exist predominantly for the perpetuation of drug supply, because there is a population out there that is hungry for what they are supplying, and the gangs get very rich from that. Prostitution, drug-laundering, and intimidation—that is the package. That is why gangs exist. They exist for no other purpose whatsoever. That is the intent of gangs. As a former police detective, I worked in surveillance jobs and all that sort of ninja turtle stuff—electronic operations, undercover operations—and I got to see how those mongrels unveiled themselves and unfurled themselves on the unsuspecting youth of New Zealand. They did it through methamphetamine, predominantly, because that was a drug that took the nation by storm and the gangs became multibillionaires out of it.

If we think about what gangs are and what it means to be a gang member, the single most important thing to a gang member is the patch they earn. They will earn that patch through robbery. They will earn that patch through causing grievous bodily harm—through beating the daylights out of someone until they are an inch from their death. They will earn that patch by raping people, and in fact they will pack rape. They will get an immediate patch if they murder. That is what the patch means to them. That is what they will do to earn it. They will stop at nothing to prevent having that patch being taken off them.

I have heard members on that side of the Chamber mention: “Oh, we can do this already. Someone at a Work and Income office can tell them to take the patch off. A school principal could tell them not to come on to the grounds with a patch on.” Well, I challenge any member in this Chamber to tell me how they would take a patch off a gang member who would rather die than give it up. I have tried, and I can tell members I have come out on the wrong side of that equation. I have been in situations where members of the public have indeed endeavoured to say: “Mr Gang Member, you cannot wear that in here.”, and they have been beaten to within an inch of their life. So that is just simply not workable. It is ludicrous to suggest it. I want any member who stands up and says: “Oh no, they can already do this. This legislation is a waste of time.”, to tell me how they would confront a gang member wearing a patch and tell them to take it off. The Mongrel Mob will kill members before it will let them be de-patched. That is how much it means to them.

This bill is not a panacea, and Mr McClay and other members right across this House have said that this is not the only answer, but it is one of them. The real answer is to deny these mongrels the opportunity to exist, and that is by having a population of New Zealanders who do not want to buy the drugs that they manufacture and supply. If we can start making some traction there—and I am sure this member here, the Hon Todd McClay, will be making some good inroads into that—then we will start seeing a difference.

This bill is not a panacea but what it does do is go a long way towards what needs to happen, because what it says is that the police have more tools. I can tell members here that there is nothing that enthuses a police officer working in organised crime more than the ability to get in a gang member’s face and make their life very uncomfortable. This bill provides that opportunity. It sends a message. It sends a message that gangs are not tolerated by communities. It sends a message that gangs are not tolerated by the Government. It sends a message that we will not put up with their intimidation, and it reduces their ability to intimidate. If the member Andrew Little wants to see it happening on beaches, bring it on. Throw a Supplementary Order Paper out there; I would certainly support it.

The gangs are a disgusting, parasitic blight on New Zealand—on all society—and anything we can do to push back on them, to deny them the intimidation they can wreak, all the better. I commend this bill.

I just wanted to take this short opportunity to get a right of reply to Jami-Lee Ross, and also to include in that some of the comments that were made by Mike Sabin. Jami-Lee Ross accused this side of the Chamber of supporting gangs. Then Mr Sabin—who I think had some very good points in his last speech—rattled off a whole lot of offences that gangs commit. I find it offensive that that side of the Chamber can claim that this side supports gangs and those kinds of crimes. I find that extremely offensive. I know this debate has been full of a bit of bluster, but to have Jami-Lee Ross accuse this side of the Chamber of supporting gangs and their actions, and then to have that list of offences read out by Mr Sabin—it is an unfortunate list of crimes, and we know it is true—is offensive. I find it offensive that Jami-Lee Ross can throw that accusation over at this side.

The Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill is a bill, as Mr Little said, that is cosmetic. If we wanted—and we have made this point many, many times—to take some action against the gangs, there are laws now that can be enforced, with proper policing, and can have the same effect. This bill is cosmetic. This is a Government that said it wanted to crack down on crime and crack down on gangs. In 2007 the Prime Minister said: “My Government will search out all legal and practicable means available for making it much, much tougher to be a member of a criminal gang in this country.” The way this Government does that is to change the dress code of the gangs. That is effectively what it is doing. It is saying: “You can’t wear your patch in Government departments.” We have already said on this side of the Chamber that a lot of Government departments already have the authority to do that. I have already mentioned the instance of the local police station in my area, Porirua. If you walk in there, they can ask you to remove your gang patch.

I also find it offensive that Mr Jami-Lee Ross can come here and talk about my community, where gangs are a problem, and say that by not supporting this bill we are not cracking down on gangs. I want to draw on a speech that Mr Sabin made on the previous bill before the House, and his comment about his ability to serve his local community and do what is best for it. I would not be doing the best for my community if I supported what we think is a cosmetic piece of legislation before us now. If we had changes that seriously attacked the drivers of people joining gangs, then this side of the Chamber would quite happily support them. But we are not going to support through this House cosmetic legislation that we do not think is effective.

I am not going to take up much more time of the Committee, but I find it offensive that Jami-Lee Ross throws that accusation over to this side of the Chamber and says that we are supportive of gangs. I want to reiterate the words of Phil Goff in our minority report on this bill: “Labour has no truck with gangs”. Patched gangs in our country are unfortunately the source of much crime and much pain to our community. If we want to be real about stamping down on them, let us get in this House some legislation that is actually going to be effective.

Australia are 9 for 1.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Relevancy.

My apologies; I will get back on the topic. I wanted to briefly acknowledge the Hon Todd McClay for bringing this piece of legislation, the Prohibition on Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill, to the House, and Mark Mitchell for picking up the reins and continuing to steer it through the House. I also wanted to acknowledge my new colleagues, Claudette Hauiti and Paul Foster-Bell, who both spoke very strongly on the law and order issue today.

We have heard tonight that Labour has no truck with gangs. We have heard that a number of times today—in fact, Kris Faafoi has picked up the phrase and used it quite effectively—but I do not accept that. I think that this bill is not a panacea—and David Clendon made the point that it is not perfect. Well, of course it is not perfect. If we relied on perfection in everything we did in this country, we would never do anything. I think that this bill goes a long way to giving the police some tools, as my colleagues have said, to take action when it is required. They will not take action on every occasion; they will take action when it is necessary. I think that is the really important thing about legislation: it gives people options and it gives the law the opportunity to act when it needs to.

I also want to take to task a number of the statistics that Mr Goff has used tonight. He has talked about the change in numbers of police officers. I want to point out that to deal with gangs, we clearly need much better equipment than we have had in the past. This Government, through some technology gains and some additional opportunities it has given the police, has picked up some 520,000 hours per year in police time. That is 30 minutes per officer per shift. That is pretty significant. It puts any figures that Mr Goff might try to use into perspective. Clearly, the police are well equipped to deal with these types of issues. There is an inconvenient truth about the sense that this law will not alter the ability of police to make a difference; it certainly will. I think that if we do not give them tools to take action when they need to, to make a difference, then we certainly are not serving our police officers well.

I want to talk about the reason I think that this is a really important opportunity for us to change the way gangs behave in our communities, and I will refer to the intimidation factor, which I think is really important for people. I think gangs certainly intimidate. They certainly intimidate Government and council staff, and they intimidate people in public areas. I think that when they get in close proximity to buildings and staff, people who serve their communities and their country, we need to consider that as we move on with this bill. I do not want to spend a lot more time on this bill. I think that it has done a great job, and I think that the people who promoted this bill thoroughly deserve for it to go through Parliament and pass with flying colours.

I just wanted to quickly respond to a couple of other issues that have been brought up in relation to the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. I would like to address some of the comments made by Andrew Little in his impassioned speech. I appreciate the fact that Mr Little would like to see this bill extended. He would like to see it cover beaches and playgrounds, but, unfortunately, we are restricted. We have to be focused on the fact that this is going to cover Government buildings. Eventually, I would love to see a bill passed in this House that would ban gang patches anywhere in the country, but that is not going to happen with this one, unfortunately. But those are very good points from Mr Little, and they are taken on board.

I would just like to comment in relation to the comments that Mr Faafoi made about Jami-Lee Ross. I think that the message that, sadly, the Labour Party is sending tonight is that, actually, you are not supportive of the police and you are being soft on gangs, because this piece of legislation very clearly—and through the select committee process, Kris, you have to acknowledge that we had—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! You must use the member’s full name.

—yes, sorry, Mr Chair, you are right—the Police Association come in and give evidence, or make a submission, in front of the Law and Order Committee. The Police Association spends a great deal of time digging into these things to see whether or not there is going to be genuine, real benefit to its members. It came in front of the select committee and it very clearly stated that this is a good piece of legislation and there is going to be a positive benefit for its members, for our serving police officers on the front line, so why you are not supporting this bill is beyond me. If you support the police, then you would support this bill. You would give them another tool that they can use in the fight against organised crime, serious crime, and gangs. I just want to support the comments that Jami-Lee Ross was making, because that is the point that he was actually trying to get across.

Those are the two issues that I really felt compelled to address, and I will now allow Mr Goff to speak.

I am going to pick up some of the issues that have been raised by National members. I will begin with Mark Mitchell because he said: “Well, yeah, we don’t cover children’s playgrounds, we don’t cover beaches, we don’t cover recreational areas, but we had to start somewhere.” Well, I would have to ask Mark Mitchell why you would start with the area where you already have the power to prevent the entry of anyone wearing a gang patch. One of the National members asked why schools have to put up with patch-wearing members coming into our schools. The answer is they do not—the answer is they do not. The school, the education system, the Minister of Education, and any Minister in charge of any department has the power right now to prevent gang members from coming on to their premises. So I reiterate the advice given to the Law and Order Committee by the officials. It was that this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill adds no new power to any power that already exists to exclude gang members wearing patches. [Interruption]

Where you do not have the power, Mr McClay, is where my colleague Andrew Little talked about. If you take your wife and kids to the beach and there is a guy there with a gang patch on, you cannot do anything about that. If you walk down the street in Rotorua, as I am sure you do from time to time, you will find gang members walking down the street. There is no power to deal with them. But you are going to give the power to remove patch-wearing gang members from areas where they are already excluded. That is dumb, that is nonsense, and that is why this is a powder puff piece of legislation that has no meaning. Richard Prosser moved his Supplementary Order Paper 253, I think, in good faith. He listened to the arguments I put up at the select committee and said: “Here are all these anomalies.” I am sure that Mr Sabin knew, when my colleague Andrew Little talked about putting lipstick on a pig, that that is a well-known saying—no matter how much cosmetic change you make, the animal underneath it is still the animal that it always was. This bill makes no difference. I have got to say to Richard Prosser that, despite his best efforts, there are always going to be anomalies all the way down the patch. So we keep them off the grounds, but now we cannot keep them from the gate of the grounds. We cannot keep them from the beach. We cannot keep them from the playground. You are going the wrong way about it.

Actually, I want to give some praise to one of the suggestions that Mike Sabin made. That was about addressing the reasons why people become members of gangs. It is notable that Black Power said earlier this year that John Key was the gang’s best friend. Everybody knows Rob Muldoon was, and he was open about that. He was the former National Prime Minister who gave the gangs the house up in Hill Street—you know, Ministry of Works and Development houses for the gangs is the tradition. But this guy was saying that John Key is the gang’s best friend because, he said, recruitment was skyrocketing under the National Government because disaffected youth were drifting towards the gangs quicker than ever before because they had no jobs. If I were to do anything to try to stop a kid from getting into a gang, putting that kid into an apprenticeship and giving him a job would be a bloody good start. That is the sort of positive action that would really make a difference. So I agree with Mike Sabin. We need to deal with the factors that push people—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.