Public Finance (Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill

I rise on behalf of ACT to speak to the Public Finance (Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill. The bill arises as a result of the Government giving a gang $2.7 million towards a drug rehabilitation programme. It all sounds pretty reasonable—to make sure Government agencies don’t go off on a whim and fund criminal organisations to provide a service that in anyone’s books would seem to be a conflict of interest.

The president of the Police Association at the time said, “It is difficult to understand how those who promote the need for drug rehabilitation seem blind to the dreadful optics of this … scenario, let alone have faith in this multi-million-dollar scheme to do anything but line the pockets of key gang leaders.” You wouldn’t give a dodgy publican almost $3 million to fix the alcoholics coming through his door. It’s not in his best interests. He needs them to drink and spend their money in his establishment.

I was really disappointed—actually, I was disgusted—at the speeches from the Government and the Green Party, who all showed that if you don’t agree with them, you’re nasty, full of venom, and only representing a small part of the community, the taxpayer being one part of that community. And, of course, the go-to if you don’t agree with everything this Government says and does—you’re racist. It never ceases to amaze me how fixated this Government is with race. This is a bill about gangs—gangs, drugs, and taxpayers’ money: simple. Lectures about gangs from chardonnay socialists who haven’t been in a public bar let alone experienced the violence and trauma that the members of this part of society cause mean nothing. I have seen it: families torn apart, kids left to fend for themselves, dealing with the women’s refuge, victim support, and scene-guarding at shootings and outside hospital rooms. That’s the reality of what we’re dealing with in this bill.

But what rhetoric did we hear from the Labour-led experts? “They are us.” We heard that “they are my family”. If that’s the case, if they’re not peddling drugs and causing harm in the community, then it doesn’t concern you. If they are, I hope you’re doing something about it. And somehow, not giving money to criminal organisations means taking education, food away from the kids, even vaccinations—it’s just nuts. We heard what we need to say to the gangs. We need to ask them, “How can I serve your community, a community I don’t know well but a community I need to know more about? How can I become connected? Who in your community can reach out to me and help me do that?” Just bizarre. Get out of your office, go for a walk down Courtney Place or Queen Street and see whether this approach is working. They’re just pathetic words that show us how out of touch this Government is.

It reminds me of when I was a policeman in Wellington and we caught a serial thief who stole $28,000 worth of stuff from various department stores around Wellington. We actually had to hire a hall in Kilbirnie to put it all in. When the thief was identifying to me which store she had stolen things from, I didn’t look too impressed. She looked at me and said, “Why are you looking at me like I’m a thief?” She really didn’t get it. It wasn’t her fault. She had absolutely zero personal responsibility. This is an attitude that is not only condoned by this Government when dealing with gangs but encouraged.

But the diatribe that sunk to new lows in my 18 months of experience in this place came from, in the immortal words of Gerry Rafferty, the clowns to my left; the despicable but absolutely predictable reference to race from start to finish must make the public of New Zealand wonder what actually goes on inside the heads of some politicians in this House. As comedian Billy Connolly once said, “If your greatest claim to fame is your ethnicity, you’re in deep trouble.” Unfortunately, ethnicity is all this Government and its allies see. It is so sad.

This bill is common sense. Government agencies should not give taxpayers’ money to criminal organisations. Scrutiny must be impeccable, and in this case it wasn’t. ACT fully supports this bill.

There’s a great Dr Seuss book that my kids love. It’s all about making noise and we all know it well. It’s a celebration of what Mr Brown can do, or really all the noise that Mr Brown can make. But the joy of that book is the disappointment of this bill, because this bill is all about making noise. It’s not about public funds. It’s most assuredly not about public safety. It’s about making noise.

But let’s assume for a moment that Mr Brown does want to do more than make noise, that he intends this bill to impact certain organisations. So who are these organisations that he’d like to take a hard-line approach to? What’s his grand plan for public safety? Well, he proposes inserting a section into the Public Finance Act that says “This Bill would prohibit the Crown and its agencies from providing funds directly and indirectly to organisations that are run, administered or associated to gangs.” Hmm. Preventing Government agencies from providing funds indirectly to organisations associated to gangs.

Now, if you’re reading the story, I mean the bill, at this stage, Mr Brown has painted a villain: it’s organisations associated to gangs. So if you’re reading the bill, you try at this stage to find this key definition “organisations associated to gangs”, but it’s not there. It’s not in the principal Act, either. But that’s OK. There are several definitions that tell us that association means “connected to or related to”. And we have noise—I mean tweets from Mr Brown that shed some light on who isn’t associated to gangs. Mid - last year, Mr Brown tweeted in part: “… helping people get off meth is the right thing to do, but shouldn’t the money be going to the Salvation Army rather than the Mongrel Mob?”

So who are these dubious associations associated to gangs? And what could their intentions be? Well, it turns out they’re organisations like the Salvation Army. Perhaps as a lesson for what values-based services looks like for some in the room, here’s what one of the Salvation Army editors wrote in part about gangs, published on their website: “we must remember that New Zealand gangs have their origin in urban poverty and disconnection … the greatest danger of prejudice is that it excludes people, pushing them to the margins. Once situated there, it becomes even easier for us to treat them as outcasts. But plenty of those who grew up in gangs don’t want that for their children. As Pat of the Wellington Black Power says in this edition, ‘Most of our whanau are born into [the gang], and my role is to improve our kids’ way of thinking and steer them away from the gang scene. This is the change I’m trying to make.’”

In March 2019, the Sallies published an article talking about the Hauora Programme, a partnership that they had with the notorious chapter of the Mongrel Mob and highlighted the story of one of the participants whose life was transformed by the programme, Tracey, who spoke about hers and her kids’ experience. She said, in part, “The boys were adamantly opposed to getting treatment. It was only because this programme was being run in connection with the Mongrel Mob—their bros—that they became willing to give it a try.” The Salvation Army article concludes, “Treatment in this safe and secure setting made it possible for Tracey and her whānau to focus on getting well without distractions.”

It is possible to have meaningful community programmes that are based on values of understanding, care, and respect that connect people where they are, that also embed systems of responsible and accountable spending. Anyone who has been in a management role knows this. So this is really where the story gets confusing. Does Mr Brown want the Salvation Army to continue to do this good work? Or does he not? Who knows! I’m quite convinced he doesn’t know, and it’s because I don’t think that he actually cares about the analysis here or the actual change to make communities safer. Mr Brown can make noise, that’s for sure, but he can’t make change. I strongly oppose this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. To just take up my colleague Vanushi Walters’ point, well of course it’s all about making noise. This little bill is nothing but noise. It is clickbait. It is simply a social media bit of window dressing to make Mr Brown and his party look like they continue to be tough on crime while doing absolutely nothing.

You can tell it’s clickbait, because the substance of the bill is so entirely lacking. It is utterly unworkable. What are we going to do with these indirect benefits that we’re going to stop gangs having? Well, I’m looking at school lunches. Are we going to take the lunches out of the mouths of children because that’s indirectly benefiting those children who have the misfortune to be born into whānau where gangs are seen as the option? What else are we going to do? Are we perhaps going to remove benefits? I think we should—that’s an indirect benefit. We should go with that one.

You can tell that there is nothing serious about this ridiculous bill, because it is written in such a way that there’s no way it works. Why is that? Because he knows it’s not going to pass. He has no intention of it passing. He has no intention of actually producing work that might do the business of reducing gang crime. All he’s after are the clicks on social media. I’m sorry, that’s not what this side of the House came in to do. We came in to do the hard work.

So let’s talk about some of the hard work that’s actually being done. Why don’t we start with Operation Tauwhiro? Why don’t we talk about 1,531 firearms, 1,255 arrests? Why don’t we talk about 53.74 kilograms of meth? Why don’t we talk about hitting the gangs where it really hurts? Why don’t we talk about taking away $500 million worth of cash and assets—that is $1.6 billion of operating cash in the black market? That’s how you do it. You hit them where it hurts. We over here are doing the hard work rather than the clickbaity media stunts over on the opposite side.

Let’s talk about something else. Why don’t we talk about resourcing the police properly so they can do their job and get those results that Operation Tauwhiro is having? Let’s talk about 3,000 more cops on the beat since October 2017, enabling a focus on organised crime that this country has never seen. Let’s talk about—and I want to really celebrate, because I am the electorate MP for Whangārei. Let’s talk about the Whangārei police and their contribution yesterday to Operation Tauwhiro. Let’s talk about taking $10,000 out of gang pockets. Let’s talk about a large amount of meth that they seized, adding to that 53.74 kilograms. Let’s talk about two unlawful firearms and ammo that was seized. Let’s talk about four arrests of young men in the wrong profession. Let’s talk about how we’re convincing those young men and other gang associates that it’s just not worth the candle.

That’s what you do when you’re really trying to do it. You do the hard yards. Treating the causes of crime, treating those things that encourage people to get involved with these appalling organisations—that’s the hard work. That’s the other hard work we’re doing, and that’s the hard work we do with operations like the drug addiction programmes that appear to have prompted this silly piece of unworkable legislation.

Let’s talk about, though—because this is the ultimate hypocrisy, not just wasting the House’s time on this nonsense, but also, guess where the programme that he’s so incensed about came from? It’s a National Party programme. Mr Key, or Sir John Key, as he now is—Wakatika Ora in 2016 got just under a million dollars. Oh, shock, horror! Hauora rehab had eight years of National Government funding. As Mr Shaw pointed out last week, the first Ministers to be photographed with gang leaders were, in fact—oh, take a deep breath, everyone—Sir Rob Muldoon and Sir John Key. Maybe we need to stop thinking about clickbait and start thinking about making actual change in gangs, and that’s what we’re doing on this side of the House—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I don’t know where to start. I’ll start with the last contributor. Emily Henderson gets up and does a tub-thumping speech on law and order. I’d ask the member: when was the last time you went and spoke to or visited your local police station and your local members, because you want to know what the reality of what they’re facing is?

💬 Dr Emily Henderson: By Zoom two weeks ago and had a good chat with Superintendent Tony Hill—excellent.

By Zoom two weeks ago. So she’s well and truly in touch with what’s happening up in her electorate of Whangārei. Well, let me give you some real feedback in terms of what’s happening up in your electorate. Number one, your police are stretched to almost breaking point. Number two, they try to police under a new pursuit policy, which means that in your electorate “failing to stops” are going through the roof. Number three, Operation Tauwhiro is a Clayton’s operation. It hasn’t got any new resources, it hasn’t got any new personnel, and actually all it is it’s a name and they’ve asked officers—and Police National Headquarters went out this week and said, “Give us as many good news stories as you can to try and support because the Minister keeps standing in this House, and keep talking about how good Operation Tauwhiro is.”

I’m telling you now I get a flood of correspondence from front-line police officers saying that it’s smoke and mirrors. They don’t like it. It’s deceptive. They don’t like the way the public have been deceived, and they don’t like the way the Labour Party and Labour Party MPs keep standing in this House and spouting Tauwhiro as if some big new operation has been launched where they’re getting more support, more resources, and the ability to tackle gangs. It’s business as usual. They’ve quite simply been asked to record any—oh, she’s yawning. She thinks this is boring. It’s boring her, what her own staff in her own area—actually the feedback that she’s providing. It’s a disgrace. It’s a complete and utter total disgrace.

I listened to Chris Baillie stand and make a speech, an impassioned speech, because, actually, you know what? As part of his public service, he actually served in our New Zealand Police Force. Do you know what happened? The Opposition parties were laughing and mocking him the whole time he delivered that speech. That’s what we’re dealing with in terms of trying to deal with this bill. Let’s go back to the heart of the bill.

So the heart of the bill is quite simply this: the genesis for it was that the whole of New Zealand saw taxpayers’ money given to the Mongrel Mob in the Hawke’s Bay to run a meth programme. I don’t think any sensible Kiwi in this country felt that the right use of taxpayers’ money was to fund a criminal organisation to deliver a programme—oh, by the way, I was in the Hawke’s Bay on Friday and I met with the Police Association and the results on that programme have shown that it has completely, totally failed, and no one in this House or in the Opposition will actually stand up and tell us how successful it was or what the numbers are on it because they don’t have the facts. They don’t actually have the facts.

But I can tell you this—and we heard the Dr Seuss stories and the tone and the mocking, and like Chris Baillie said, as one of their best political tools it’s not a very effective tool but they do deploy it all the time; it’s to try and label people: racist, misogynist, whatever you like. If you say something they don’t like and you want to engage in a debate they try to shout you down with silly comments like Dr Seuss books. It’s embarrassing when you try to have a proper debate.

What I’d say is this to the members: go down to Hawke’s Bay and meet with the police down there, and just ask them and say, “How do you feel about the $2.5 million that we gave to a local chapter of your Mongrel Mob?”—the guys that you’re turning out every day and every night to go and deal with the crime because—shock, horror—the Mongrel Mob is a criminal group. They commit crimes. They wear patches. Do you know how they get that patch? They don’t get a patch by being the best at tiddlywinks or winning the local pétanque competition. They get a patch because they’ve gone out and they’ve proven that they’re good at crime and they’re good at violence. And if they’ve proven that they’re good enough at crime and good enough at violence, they get a patch.

What this Government’s done is it’s given a group in Hawke’s Bay that the police are constantly having to deal with, a group that’s peddling drugs, a group that’s behind thefts and burglaries, a group that’s behind armed robberies, a group that fails to stop when the police try to stop them, a group that’s willing to use violence on a weekly basis in the community—and our police, who don’t get paid a lot, who need more resources, that are stretched, are having to go out there and deal with a group that this Government felt was a good idea to give them $2.5 million. So I’d challenge all the Labour MPs and the Green MPs and whoever else is getting up and trying to defend it and will not vote for this bill, because this bill is try to stop it, to go down to Hawke’s Bay. Talk to the local police down there. Talk to the local community and see what they think.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. It’s been quite difficult to sit through this debate this afternoon and listen to the contributions from the other side. I was told to get out of my office and go for a walk down Courtenay Place. I challenge the other side to get out of your office and go for a walk through Moeroa and Kaikohe. I challenge the other side to get out of your office—not go to the Hawke’s Bay but come to Te Tai Tokerau, come to Northland, come to the communities, come to the people with lived experience who are trying to change the futures for their whānau and for our communities. I challenge you to come and meet with some of those people who are doing it without funding—doing it without funding—who I have been trying to find funding for and have successfully gotten funding for, those with lived experience from methamphetamine addictions who are doing wonderful work in our communities to change the futures for their whānau and for our communities. So I challenge you: come to Kaikohe, come to Moeroa, come to the Tai Tokerau.

I challenge you over there who say you’re here to represent the taxpayers. Do you know it costs a lot more money to keep people in prisons than what we have committed to and contributed to here to try to change the status quo, to change lives, to change communities?

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Not write them off.

That’s right—not write them off. And so I have found it very difficult to sit through the debate this afternoon and to hear that this is about race, that this is racism. It just shows me that you have absolutely no understanding of people’s experiences—intergenerational issues that we have here. Do you know any of these people? You criticised us on the other side that we happen to be related to some of these people, and somehow it’s our failing that we have not been able to change something that is intergenerational, like it’s a quick fix. And, actually, to the other side, I would like to quote your former Minister who actually supported these initiatives and gave funding, because what the former Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley said in reference to those initiatives in 2016, which you all supported, was that these trials are working on the ground with gang families, who are actually willing to change because that is the first step to get through. And she rightly went on to say, “You cannot change overnight what has taken generations to produce.” So let’s not make this a race-based argument; let’s look at the facts. Who are the people that are suffering because of this and why is it that they are disproportionately represented in this particular issue? This is not about racism or race-baited debates in the House this afternoon. Look at the facts and address the issue.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I am really passionate about this. You know, the Minister for Corrections, MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Kelvin Davis, and I have sat amongst groups in our communities who would fit this category that you’re talking about, Mr Brown, who you don’t want to fund, who many are nervous of or have this perception about them. But it wasn’t until I sat with them that I heard their stories, their testimonies, first hand; that I saw the work that they are doing to connect to other people in their situation with addictions and with long histories of gang affiliation, trying to break that cycle, trying to turn it around. It is not easy, and I can see that. But when I sat amongst those people, I was so moved, because what I saw is that these people with lived experience were able to connect with others who are struggling with addiction, who are struggling to break the cycle of whānau violence, of trauma, of this intergenerational issue that we have. I was moved by it. I was convinced that they have to be given this opportunity to be able to try and change the status quo and that we have to find it within ourselves to look to how we might be able to support that and not continue to just write them off and basically say, “For you and yours to come, this is your future.” I do not support this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As much as the member in charge of this bill wants to make it such, this is not a debate on whether gangs are good or bad. No one in this House is saying that gangs are good. Everyone is recognising that gangs do behaviour and cause harm in our communities, and nobody supports that. We recognise that there are many people, over various generations, for decades in this country, who have suffered under the behaviour of gangs. The question is: how do we stop that?

We don’t stop that by making cynical political moves that are trying to dog-whistle to people to say and position one party against another as soft on crime and tough on crime. No party in this House is soft on crime. But what this side of the House recognises is that we can take a punitive approach, like we have over decades in this country, and nothing will change. What was it Einstein said? The definition of stupidity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Take a look at the United States and see how high incarceration rates and high penalties—as high as the death penalty—are stopping crime over there. It makes no difference. The approach that we need to take in this country is to understand what drives people into gangs and to invest in programmes that stop people entering and stop people staying in gangs.

Now, I say this as the member of Parliament for the Wairarapa electorate, and in the northern part of that electorate is Central Hawke’s Bay, where there was a programme funded by Government departments targeting gangs, getting people off drugs, and getting them out of the cycle of anti-social and criminal behaviour. There are strict conditions upon that funding. There are regular audits and regular reviews, and a key condition of that funding is that if it is not delivered, then the next quarter’s funding of that, I believe, two years of funding will not be delivered. They have to report back to Government departments.

Now, I’ll admit, when I first found out about it, because I had no context—it was a local journalist that rung up and said, “What do you think of the $2.85 million that was given to a gang?” I said, “I’m not in a position to comment on that because I don’t know anything about it.” But I’ll admit, in the absence of any context or any information, it seemed a bit unusual. However, when I realised and when I was informed that this was a programme that was based on one that the previous National Government implemented in conjunction with the Salvation Army, focused on gangs, that was effective, that worked, I thought, actually, this makes sense, because here we have an opportunity to support a programme that clearly—or one might think—has bipartisan support, that is based on a programme that worked, that targets those that are in gangs, that has proven results. Why wouldn’t we want to support that? Why wouldn’t we want to support a programme that the Police support, that Corrections support, and that the Ministry of Education, I believe, support? There’s a long list of Government departments that actually know what they’re talking about, that aren’t interested in dog-whistling and aren’t interested in petty politics and trying to position people on people’s lives and livelihoods. They’re actually interested in results, and that is what this Government is interested in.

If this bill was to focus on rehabilitation, I think we’d support it, but it doesn’t. It focuses on judgment and it focuses on spitefulness and pettiness. What it says is, “We’re going to teach the gangs a lesson. We’re going to tell them that they’re naughty and we’re not going to talk to them, and we’re just going to make them more ostracised and more isolated in society. That’ll teach them. Because then they’ll stop what they’re doing. They’ll take a look in the mirror and they’ll say, ‘They’ve stopped recognising us. I’m going to go get a degree.’” It’s not how it works. It’s absolute nonsense. It is based on judgment, and I think, frankly, it is based on hatred. They are judging people for entering into circumstances that they don’t understand. They don’t take the time to appreciate the fact that there are vulnerable people in our communities that see no hope. They don’t think they’ll get a job, they don’t think they’ll get education, and here we have a vulnerable person being lured in by the promise of prestige and money. They are parasites on our most vulnerable. I do not condone in any way what gangs do in our community, but let’s be pragmatic. Let’s focus on what needs to be done and vote this bill out.

Simeon Brown—five minutes in response.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What an absolutely awful speech from the whip of the Labour Party there in regard to my bill, which is about prohibiting taxpayer funding for gangs. The mixed messages that we heard from the other side of the House: “Oh, no party’s soft on gangs. No party in this House is soft on gangs.”, but then we see the actions. It’s one thing to stand up and say we’re going to be tough on crime and tough on gangs; it’s another thing to then put your vote somewhere differently, and in a few minutes’ time, that party will be voting against this piece of legislation.

The very principle of this piece of legislation is about saying that hard-working taxpayers’ money, should not be going towards funding gangs. What we’ve seen under this Government is an absolute explosion in gang numbers, a 40 percent increase in gang membership, and New Zealanders see every single day the impact of that increased gang membership on their daily lives. We see the crime which is getting committed on our streets, the drug dealing which is taking place, the firearm offences which keep increasing and increasing, the drive-by shootings. This is something which New Zealanders are seeing, and this Government’s response, or their response, is “Well, we’ll just give $2.75 million to the Mongrel Mob.” I’ve got some news for the Government. Guess what! The Salvation Army ain’t the Mongrel Mob, and the Mongrel Mob ain’t the Salvation Army; I’m not sure if they’ve quite realised that. This Government is prepared to try to mix what is actually happening here to try to justify a decision whereby $2.75 million from the proceeds of crime fund went to Harry Tam, a lifetime member of the Mongrel Mob—something which the vast majority of New Zealanders think is completely unacceptable.

We’ve heard what the Police Association have said about this. They’ve said this appears to be one of the most lucrative or successful money-laundering operations. Just last year, the police took $2 million in Operation Dusk off the Mongrel Mob in the Hawke’s Bay, and only a couple of months later, $2.75 million was given back through this fund to the Mongrel Mob. It’s almost like the money was given back with interest. The money was taken with one hand and given back with the other. And the reality is we know this is not going to make a difference.

I’ve run through the numbers in my initial speech. The amount of money—$250,000 per participant—is $250,000 per participant in this programme, while Victim Support get only two or three hundred bucks per person that they help. If this Government’s truly wanting to actually help victims of crime, then they should be putting their money where their mouth is, rather than putting millions of dollars towards a programme which we know isn’t going to make a difference.

And you know what? There’s one thing which actually says to me about the other side of the House that they’re not very comfortable with their position—because typically on a bill like this, the first person to get up and take a call when it comes to law and order would be Greg O’Connor, but where was Greg O’Connor, the former Police Association president, during this debate? He didn’t take a call at all.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: They’ve parked him up.

They’ve parked him up; that’s right, Mr Mitchell. They’ve parked him up. The reality is, they know, deep down, this was the wrong decision to make. They knew this was the wrong decision to make. They know it wasn’t what New Zealanders wanted, and they know that public money shouldn’t be going to gangs. But they’ve bought into the narrative that they want to work with gangs, despite the fact that they know the harm that they are causing in our community, and New Zealanders will not forget what they are doing.

If they were truly actually wanting to make a difference, they would have sent this bill to a select committee, rather than come up with all sorts of random creative arguments to say that this bill wasn’t fit for purpose. I mean, one of the pathetic arguments was it doesn’t define what a gang member is. It actually does define what a gang member is. It says very clearly that gangs are defined through section 4 of the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Act. I don’t know if the Government members are actually aware that the legislation already has a definition of gang membership in New Zealand. The police have a register. This information is not very hard to find, and this piece of legislation is fit for purpose and should be supported. The National Party commends it to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.