Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

We need to have this bill. We need to have it in place, and the reason why is because crime is totally out of control in New Zealand. The reason why crime is totally out of control is because we have a Government that is soft on gangs, soft on punishment, and soft on answers. Five years—five years—they’ve been in Government, and law and order at the moment is at its worst.

The Commissioner of Police wants to police by consent and the gangs are taking full advantage of that, and while policing by consent actually does nothing for the victims of crime, we are now producing the next generation of ram raid kids. They should be at school, learning an education, not out on the streets, learning how to be criminals.

But the big problem that’s facing us now is the serious gun crime—serious gun crime committed by unlicensed, unconcerned, unrepentant drug-fuelled thugs. Did the firearms confiscation make us safer? No. It targeted those that obeyed the law. It didn’t get the guns off the streets. It took 60,000 firearms from the police-approved, secure safes, and how many gang members handed in their guns? How many contributed to the 60,000 that—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: That’s where they get their guns from.

—were voluntarily handed in? One—one gang member, one firearm, Minister Nash. It was doomed to fail the safer communities goal from the start, because it targeted the wrong people. The Government failed New Zealand, and they double down on legislation that’s continuing to fail New Zealand.

My bill is designed to assist police with meeting realistic and achievable forfeiture thresholds. It’s designed to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets—and let me tell you why. It’s because we’ve chosen the path of asset seizure. Studies have shown that sending gang members to jail is like sending kids to a candy store—it’s one of their favourite places to be, because they can recruit more members there. The studies also show that domestic violence within families that come from gang-affiliated homes is often serious violent harm, so the threat of losing one’s family doesn’t even appear to have that much effect, either. But the moment you talk about taking away their bling, their assets, well then—just like we do with the Labour Party—you hit a nerve. To them, money brings status, it brings power, and it brings envy.

Currently, police have criteria to meet in order to freeze and seize assets, and this includes meeting thresholds within section 6(1) of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 as to what makes a significant criminal activity. Not only does the offending have to consist of one or more offences but it must be punishable by five years or more in prison, and police must prove that the property, proceeds, or the benefits to the activity actually amount to $30,000 or more. Now, the police have told me that they actually wait until they know the assets are at a value of over $100,000 before they apply, because having to prove the $30,000 value of ill-gotten assets can be difficult, especially when section 6(3) excludes any expenses or outgoings used in connection with criminal activity.

We can make it easier and fruitful for police. All of us are familiar with the headlines that we hear and we read in the news when police raid a criminal’s premises. What do they find? Three things: drugs, cash, and guns. This bill will make the finding of an illegally held firearm a new threshold to freeze and seize assets. It’s designed to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets. It’s to deter the use of illegally held firearms. It’s about holding gangs and criminals to account, and making sure there is a price to pay for having a firearm without a licence but with criminal intent—that is a place where significant criminal activity occurs. It’s about giving police another tool—a real tool, an effective tool—to go after the gangs.

What sorts of figures are we talking here? Well, in the five years between 2017 and 2021, the seized assets valued $626,360,911. It was made up of some very big asset seizures, including $123 million in 2019, and $220 million in 2020—$626 million over five years—and yet this Government budgeted only $95 million to fight organised crime, but they’ll put $200 million for setting up a registry for firearms that the gangs and criminals will have absolutely no intention of using. Only Labour wastes money like this during a cost of living crisis.

Not only that, the Government often claims that they’ve taken all this money from the gangs, but statistics tell us a different story. Nearly $500 million of the $626 million—that’s nearly half a billion dollars—that was recovered actually came from white-collar criminals, not from the gangs. This money should be used to fight the gangs, not fund them.

This bill is an opportunity for the Government to actually do what they claimed that they would do when they used our line and said that they wanted to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets. I expect that the Government will say that they’ve got their own ideas, they’ve got their own criminal proceeds and recovery bill, and they’ve got their own firearms prohibition orders, because to them, it’s about the politics, not the people.

But I must say, with all due respect, that if you don’t understand the problem, how can you actually fix it? This Government has so far wasted their five years and hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars on what should be used on service to our communities. By failing them, which you’ve done now when it comes to law and order, you’ve wasted the money. Going after licensed firearms owners has also wasted taxpayer time and money. It’s caused anger and distrust from nearly a quarter of a million people towards the Government and the police. Relationships built over decades were destroyed in weeks because the target chosen was the easy, law-abiding one.

It’s time to grow some there, Labour, and tell the gangs and their criminals that there is no place for their destructive activities in our neighbourhoods. We want thriving communities, not scared ones. Support our small businesses, Labour, our retailers—those trying so hard to make a living, but who are under constant violent attacks, which is threatening what needs to be a healthy economy as we push our heads above the COVID parapet.

Police have publicly acknowledged that they are finding more and more illegally held firearms at their raids, and we are all concerned about public and front-line police safety. Illegal firearm use is most certainly gang-fuelled. There is a lot to do with retaliation, or utu. It involves drugs, it involves violence, it involves money, and it’s involving our women and our kids. Give that some consequence.

One thing we can do with my bill is to make it financially painful to be caught in the illegal possession of a firearm when undertaking organised crime activities. I recall recently the “two Jareds”—that’s Jared Savage and Jarrod Gilbert. They wrote an excellent article detailing that one piece of legislation alone would not fix an intergenerational problem, a problem made worse by drugs. Well, ACT are committed to law and order, and we’re not going to stop here. Tony Severin has a rehabilitation bill in the ballot box that will ensure that prisoners are released on parole after they’ve completed a rehabilitation programme. We have a policy on intergenerational welfare use, and with ram raids, we certainly need to bring back the charter schools and have them re-established. We will align our police numbers to population growth to stop them from being a political football—as we first said—and we have a stack of other good ideas to rebuild our communities and have them thriving again.

This is Labour’s opportunity to actually get guns off the streets, not from police-approved, secure homes. Target the right people and make better use of taxpayer money during a cost of living crisis. Can they walk the talk and commit to truly focusing on the real perpetrators of gun crime? I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (CPRA) enables the restraint and forfeiture of any property in New Zealand that is derived from significant criminal offending. To initiate restraint and forfeiture under the CPRA requires a person to have engaged in activities that consist of an offence punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment or more, or have led to the person acquiring property assets or benefits of a value of $30,000 or more.

The member’s bill proposes amending the CPRA to also enable restraint and forfeiture where a person has committed any criminal offence that occurs at a place where “4(1)(b)(i) there are prohibited firearms or firearms that are possessed unlawfully; and (ii) a person is present who is a member of a gang or organised criminal group.” The bill would result in only a very small number of additional proceedings being taken under this amendment bill and would not significantly disrupt criminal behaviour.

The member’s bill also creates a number of issues. It does not provide definitions of some of the critical terminology needed to implement the bill, such as defining membership of an organised criminal group. This would make the process for seizing criminal assets more challenging and time consuming, as police would need to prove gang or organised crime group membership every time the proposed amendment was used. There have been suggestions the national gang list could be used to do this. The list, as I’ve said many times, is an internal intelligence tool and was not designed to meet the standards required by the court to prove an individual is a member of a particular gang.

The member’s bill focuses on people with firearms; however, CPRA already allows police to seize assets derived from the trafficking of firearms or other illegal firearm activity. In addition, the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 already allows the police to seize and dispose of firearms that are possessed unlawfully in breach of the Arms Act 1983.

Gangs destroy lives, and this Government is focused on targeting gangs and organised crime. We have never been more active in cracking down on gangs and organised crime and getting gang leaders off our streets. This Government is investing in police to support them in their efforts to tackle gang activity and gun crime. This is why this Government is investing $94 million into tackling gangs and organised crime in this year’s Budget, and why the Government’s Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill is currently being considered by the Justice Committee. The Police are committed to targeting the offenders who do the most harm in our communities and to making New Zealand the hardest country in the world for organised criminal groups to do business. Our focus is on strong enforcement, while also working with communities to put in place smart prevention by addressing the social factors that lead to people joining gangs in the first place. We are pursuing amendments to the CPRA to strengthen the targeting of assets—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I appreciate that the Minister is giving wide context to—

Sure.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I haven’t finished—is giving wide context to this bill; however, it is a first reading of a member’s bill, and I invite the Minister to pay closer attention to that bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don’t have much more to say in terms of the member’s bill. Just to say that we conclude by addressing the fact that there are a number of significant issues with the proposed amendment in the bill and the assumptions that underpin it, particularly with regards to how we define an organised crime group. So in conclusion, we are unable to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, that says it all, doesn’t it? You’ve got the Minister of Police in the House, who stands and can barely squeeze out a four-minute speech in relation to a bill that, actually, will go a long way to supporting the staff that she purports to stand in this House and support every day. And I want to acknowledge the member Nicole McKee; this is a good bill. We’ve had a 40 percent increase in gang numbers in this country over the last four years. We’ve had a 21 percent increase in violent crime. We’ve got gang members—

💬 Anna Lorck: Who put a freeze on police?

What’s the member saying?

💬 Anna Lorck: Who put a freeze on police numbers?

Who put a freeze on police numbers? Well, maybe the member could stand and take a call on this and explain to us why you’re not going to give the Police a power that they need to start taking weapons out of the gangs’ hands, because I’ve got very, very bad news for that member: under her Government, under this Labour Government, New Zealanders are seeing a proliferation of gang members, they’re seeing a proliferation of firearms—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I do beg your pardon. It is well known in this House that interjections are to be rare and reasonable, and a barrage of shouting is not acceptable.

And just in response to that member, tomorrow I have Diane Hunt arriving in our capital city. She’s the mother of Matthew Hunt, who was shot and killed in broad daylight in the streets of West Auckland by a gang member with a high-powered military rifle—an illegal rifle. His partner, David Goldfinch, a father of two, barely escaped with his life and will have serious injuries that will follow him through the rest of it. So I don’t need to be harped at and lectured by the Labour Party when a member brings a bill to this House that would actually give the Police the powers that they need to be able to take the type of weapons that Eli Epiha was carrying on the street that day when he shot and killed Matthew Hunt and shot and wounded David Goldfinch.

This is a serious bill, and I don’t appreciate the Labour Ministers treating it as if it isn’t. It’s a bill that actually gives our police officers the ability to go to an address to search it, and if there’s an illegal firearm there, they can start seizing assets. And I’ll tell you what: if you want to make a real difference, the feedback that I’ve had from serving officers—from detective inspectors through to detectives on the front lines, the people that are actually doing the work, the people that are out there in the middle of the night, having to kick doors in and trying to police and trying to make our communities safer—is this is a good bill, because what gives them the real power to start to deal with these gangs—and, by the way, the Labour Party think they can cuddle up to the gangs. Let me tell you something: the gangs think that you’re a joke. They’re not listening to anything that you say.

Soft on crime—to actually call this Government soft on crime almost feels too nice. It shouldn’t be “soft”; it should be “mushy”, or something else, because under this Government, we’ve seen a massive growth in gang numbers, we’ve seen a massive increase in assaults on police, we’ve seen terrible assaults on members of the public in broad daylight, by gangs that are emboldened and think that they can operate with impunity, and we see firearm incidents every day—and I’m sorry, but, tonight, there was an incident with a gang that shot into a family home where a child was almost hit. That’s happening daily. And the Minister comes to this House and she makes some innocuous points that aren’t relevant to the bill at all, the Speaker has to draw her back to the bill, and then she goes, “Oh, well, I’ve really got nothing more to add.”, and leaves—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member is not to bring the Speaker into the debate.

—yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker—and then leaves the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member does know and has realised that he does not refer to a member’s absence. I don’t want to have to get to my feet every two minutes.

The Labour Party is going to vote this bill down tonight. They probably won’t support the petition of Diane Hunt tomorrow, either, for her son Matthew. They’re trying to scrap the three strikes legislation. At some time they’re going to have to wake up and they’re going to have to realise—stop with all the nice platitudes—the Police actually need some genuine support. They’re trying to do their job with one hand tied behind their back. The Minister referred to the firearms prohibition order—it’s a toothless tiger. It’s got no warrantless search power in it. So how are the Police supposed to take the guns out of gangs’ hands, when they can’t stop them and search them? Wake up. On the select committee we had two senior officers from the Police National Headquarters turn up, and they couldn’t agree with each other on whether or not section 18 was going to give the powers that it needed. This Government actually needs to wake up and needs to actually start doing something real and tangible to deal with the gang situation in this country.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The one thing, as a former Minister of Police, that I think is abhorrent is, first of all, Mitch, you’re better than making politics out of Matt Hunt’s death. That was an absolute tragedy, and every single police officer that goes out there, every single day—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I am going to take—sorry.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Sorry, I hadn’t finished speaking. The Hon Mark Mitchell.

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: I am going to take personal offence to that, and I am going to ask the member to stand, withdraw, and apologise, to say that I’m politicising the death of Matthew Hunt.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK, thank you. The member has taken offence. The member will withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, if there is one thing that this Government is not is that it is soft on crime. Let me outline a little bit of history about what happened in the three years before we came into power. Police numbers dropped in the last three years of the National Government—they dropped—and during that period in time, gangs flourished. Meth got out of control, and, in fact, if any member was to have a look at the Police annual report when that member over there was the Minister of Police, it actually says the police are going to have to do more with the same numbers to 2020. In fact, if it wasn’t for the pressure that the Labour Opposition at the time put on the Government of the time, the numbers wouldn’t have increased all.

So what did we do to deal with this? We did what every New Zealander wanted us to do—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member is one minute 45 into his contribution. I invite him to come to the bill.

Point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I have just—

Yes, and I demand a point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no, no, no. I have just ruled. I’ve invited the member to come to the bill, and I invite him to do just that. If the member does have a point of order, it must not be related to the matter I’ve just ruled on.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. I’ve listened to about 15 minutes of speeches on this from the ACT member of Parliament and the National member of Parliament, and all they talked about, by and large, was how Labour is soft—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. That is not a point of order, but I will speak to it. This is a member’s bill. Members have every right to respond to comments made by another member, but those responses and those comments must be in passing. This is a first reading speech on a member’s bill. I invite the Hon Stuart Nash to resume his speech.

A substantial part of this bill is talking about firearms and firearm crime, and gangs and guns. We recognised, at one point in time, that guns were a real problem—certain types of guns were a real issue in our community—where we had a terrorist come in with military-style semi-automatic weapons and mow down 51 Kiwis. As the Minister of Police at the time, I talked to a number of people involved in the firearms community—a wide range of people in the firearms community—and do you know what they all said? “You don’t need these guns.” Hunters said you don’t need a military-style semi-automatic to hunt. Duck shooters said you don’t need a barrel with eight bullets to hunt. So what we did—the first jurisdiction in the world—is we actually banned weapons that were produced to kill people—to kill people. We said any legitimate weapon for hunting, for duck hunting, for farms, we’ll leave those there. And the vast majority of gun owners, the vast majority of Kiwis, understood why we were doing what we were doing and they bought into it, because the thing is, when it comes to guns and when it comes to gangs, we all know—and Nicole McKee, I believe you know, because you were a very staunch advocate in this—that where the gangs—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member will not bring the Speaker—

Oh, for goodness’ sake.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will not bring the Speaker into the debate. The member will not reflect on the Speaker’s rulings. I’m warning the member that if he doesn’t come back to the bill—he has just under two minutes left of his speech. If the Minister does not come back to the bill, I will terminate his speech. He’s had several warnings.

That member of Parliament who has brought this bill to the House, I believe, is out of touch with the vast majority of good, law-abiding citizens. All the research shows that where the gangs get their guns from is they steal them from good, law-abiding citizens. In order to deal with the gun problems and gangs, we brought a bill to this House which made it a lot more difficult for gangs to get guns, and, lo and behold, the ACT Party and the National Party voted against that bill.

This bill will do nothing to address the really serious problem we have in this country, and that is gangs and that is guns. The things that will deal with this are more police on the streets, which we are implementing in a way that no other Government—the way to deal with this issue is to go after the gangs with gang focus units, which we have put in place. The way to go after and achieve the objectives that member would like to see in this bill is to ensure that those who are caught with illegal weapons go down for a long time, which is what we put in place and that member’s party voted against.

There is a great body of work that is going on right across the police service at the moment to deal with these issues. If that member understood what the police were doing, what the Minister was doing, what the focus of this Government is, to address these issues, then I think she would realise that she is wasting her time with this bill. When that member talked about a waste of time—Nicole McKee, I am sorry, you are out of touch with what the police are doing to solve this important issue.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I hope to bring the House back to the bill, after several contributions from both sides of the House that have diverged quite a fair bit away from it. I would just quite like to ground us all in the criminal justice system from the perspective of someone who worked in it for a decade.

How do proceeds of crime legislations work? They came in under the last National Party Government. They seek to take away what purportedly is an incentive for crime, which is property. Most New Zealanders, though, would be horrified to find that, whilst in this country we determine guilt of criminal offending through a criminal justice process, where there is a burden of proof on the Crown and a standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt—so you have to prove the person did the crime—proceeds of crime legislation don’t apply those same standards. This is a balance of probabilities. You don’t have to have been proven to be in a gang. You don’t have to have been proven to have committed a crime. You certainly don’t have to have it proven that the property that the Crown is seizing was the proceeds of a crime. It’s all done on balance of probabilities.

And who do we see our criminal justice treat as if it’s more likely that they are a criminal, more likely that they’re in a gang, and more likely that they shouldn’t have property? It’s not a fair and just system when it comes to accusations, and that’s who this bill will impact. It will be Māori. It will be Pacific peoples. It will be poorer communities.

If you can’t prove the person was in a gang, why are you taking away their rights to their property? That doesn’t seem like something that a libertarian party should be doing. They should be raising the standard of proof to or beyond a reasonable doubt standard.

Let’s come back to the criminal justice system. Let’s come back to sitting across the table from someone who has been accused of being in a gang—or someone who has been proven to be in a gang. You put their file in front of them. Can they read it? Almost never. We talk about protecting children. Who’s in gangs? Almost every person I came across in the justice system who I represented had a mental health report that showed that they’d been removed from their home or that they’d been kicked around homes. Their tattoos—often facial—were put on there at early adolescence so they could look tough so they could fend off their abusers. That’s who we’re talking about. We have a system that abuses children from a certain background and then kicks them into a criminal justice system, and this bill wants to lower the standard of proof for guilt.

We want to lower the standard of proof of guilt. We want to shift the burden on to the person to prove their innocence. We want to double down on the prejudice, on the racism, and on poverty that causes crime whilst we tell victims we’re keeping them safe!

We’re not allowed to accuse each other of dishonesty in this House, but if we keep doing criminal justice without evidence—and that’s on both sides, because more police aren’t going to keep anyone safe either, by the way. That’s just to this Government, who just put half a billion dollars into front-line police instead of mental health care and instead of addiction treatment.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I invite the member to come a little more closely to the bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This bill purports to take away property without proof that anyone is guilty of being in a gang, has committed a crime, or has done anything that’s in fact going to address criminal offending. It won’t keep anyone safe. It’s certainly not commendable, and it’s actually a shame that we’re doing things in this archaic way again and again whilst telling the public we’re keeping them safe. On behalf of the Green Party, I would never commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora and good evening, Madam Speaker. I sit with Ms McKee on the Justice Committee and I would like to have supported her member’s bill, because it is a milestone. Unfortunately, sitting in select committee also demonstrates the dangers of allowing in an unnecessary or a badly designed bill, however many clicks it generates its owner. The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act (CPR Act), which this bill seeks to amend, is designed to enable the forfeiture of property that has been derived directly or indirectly from significant criminal activity. It’s an Act about making sure crime doesn’t pay, about depriving people who offend or profit off that profit.

But instead of improving the Act’s ability to strip criminals of their profits, this bill dispenses with any real link between asset and offending, scooping up into the net a whole lot of not-very-organised-at-all criminal conduct and a whole lot of assets with little, if any, relation to criminal activity.

Let’s imagine “Uncle Bob”, usually a law-abiding person, who forgets to renew his gun licence. Now Uncle Bob’s holding an unlawful gun under the Arms Act. But before he can rectify this situation, his misguided “Nephew Billy” from the local gang pops around for a cuppa and a chat about turning his life around, only to find himself in the presence of an unlawful gun and in the middle of a crime scene. Now uncle’s worldly goods are forfeit under the CPR Act, as amended by Ms McKee, despite the fact those worldly goods are the proceeds of precisely no crimes because none of his wrongdoing has produced an illicit dime.

The amendment is inconsistent. It’s overkill and it’s unfair, and—as Minister Williams pointed out—would cause considerably more work for our police. It’s also unnecessary. If the focus is on gangs and gun crime, the police can already use the CPR Act to seize their assets because illegal firearm trafficking is already punishable by 10 years’ jail under the Arms Act. Even unlawful possession of a prohibited firearm has a five-year term, sufficient to trigger the existing Act. Short of these, the Arms Act allows police to seize unlawful firearms even for offences under the CPR Act threshold.

But, finally, this bill is an irrelevance because the Government is already cracking down on guns and organised crime or gangs. We’re already working on real improvements to the Criminal Proceeds Act to enable better targeting of organised crime, so that where a person’s legitimate income is unlikely to have been enough to acquire an asset, they will have to demonstrate a legitimate source or lose it. Our firearms prohibition orders will make it illegal for high-risk people such as members of organised crime fraternities to own firearms, in a bill which has already passed its first reading in February. By this December, we’ll have a dedicated police firearms unit for regulatory activities, and by June 2023, a firearms registry to fill our 30-year-old gap about what legal firearms are in our communities.

We are committing resources on to the ground to protect our communities on a scale never seen before. We’re ahead of schedule in delivering the biggest police force New Zealand has ever seen, and, in Budget 2022, we’re increasing it and putting another $94 million specifically into tackling gangs and organised crimes—and it is working. In four years, we have seized over $500 million in cash and assets from gangs and criminals, we have seized 1,500 firearms, arrested 1,200 people, and seized 53.74 kilograms of meth.

It’s great to have a member’s bill, but it’s only worth the effort—not just by the member but by this House—if it’s actually going to make a difference. This one won’t. It’s a day late, a dollar short, and I cannot commend it.

It is a privilege to take a call on the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill first reading in the name of Nicole McKee from the ACT Party. It is a privilege to support such an important piece of legislation through its first reading and, I hope, to select committee, but that does not seem to be the way it will go with this Government that is in charge.

This is an important piece of legislation because it sends a very clear message that being a criminal gang member will not pay in New Zealand. We heard it from the other side: crime shouldn’t pay. But they’re going to vote against the bill. Crime shouldn’t pay, but now they’re voting against the bill which will make sure that crime doesn’t pay in New Zealand.

It’s a very, very simple principle in this piece of legislation: if the police turn up to a property and they find a gang member with an illegal firearm, they are able to take that gang member’s assets. I’m sick and tired of hearing people apologising for gang members in New Zealand. The apologising for gang members that’s come from the members on the other side and the Green Party up in the far corner is actually quite disgusting. We live in a country which has become overridden with gang members under this Government. There have been more gang members recruited under this Government than police officers. It’s grown faster, the number of gang members than police officers, but all we hear is apologies—apologies for the gang members. And when they stop apologising the next thing they start doing is actually funding the gangs. They take the money, using the proceeds of crime fund, and then they start giving it back to the gangs. That is absolutely disgusting.

But what the criminal proceeds of crime fund—the legislation which this bill amends is about saying, “Crime shouldn’t pay, and we will take your assets, and then we will put it to crime prevention and actually keeping New Zealanders safe.” This Government says, “We’re going to take some money off the Hawke’s Bay Mongrel Mob, and then we’re going to give it back with interest.” They literally gave back twice as much as they took in the first place. That’s how this Government operates, and, quite frankly, New Zealanders have had enough. The poll results say, “Enough.” Seventy percent of New Zealanders think the police Minister is soft on crime—70 percent. That is an embarrassing number for the police Minister. Fifty percent of Labour supporters think the police Minister’s soft on crime. That is absolutely embarrassing.

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Speak to the bill.

So what this Government should be doing is supporting legislation which actually does make a difference, Mr Stuart Nash. Actually making a difference, to actually give the police the tools they need to go hard against the gangs—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

—take the assets off them and actually make sure that crime doesn’t pay in New Zealand. I heard the previous speaker say that gangs are just a fraternity. They’re not the Rotary club, for goodness’ sake. These people are shooting people, killing people.

💬 Hon Member: They play tiddlywinks.

They’re not—well, these guys are playing tiddlywinks with the gangs. The gangs have got this Government wrapped round their little finger, and it shows every single day. It’s quite disgusting.

Then you’ve got the Green Party saying, “Oh, we’ve got too many police in New Zealand.” They want to defund the police. Well, what they’ll do is the next piece of legislation will say “defunding the police in New Zealand”. Absolutely disgusting. What we need to be doing in New Zealand is actually supporting our police, giving them tools that they need, like the tool in this bill, which is an excellent tool, which actually gives them tools to go after the gangs and go after their assets. That is exactly what this piece of legislation will do.

So I’m very grateful that the member from the ACT Party, Nicole McKee, who is an outstanding advocate around law and order and justice issues, is bringing legislation to this House. Legislation which should at least be sent to a select committee. They crow about firearm prohibition orders. They’ve had 4½ years. What have they done? Four and a half years, what have they done? Minister Stuart Nash, you were told in 2017, in your briefing to the incoming Minister that came on your desk, we need firearms prohibition orders, and nothing happened while you were Minister of Police—nothing happened. And now you’re trying to complain from the sidelines. Chirp, chirp, chirp from the sidelines. Nothing happened while you were the Minister of Police. What a fail—what a fail. Well, the people of Napier will have a thing or two to say about that next year, won’t they?

And so what we need is legislation which will make a difference. The ACT Party’s brought legislation. National’s bringing legislation. We’ve got a plan to tackle gangs in New Zealand. But this soft on crime Government is embarrassing, and next year they’ll be gone.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I think that the first observation I want to make is that that last contribution, from Simeon Brown, seemed to be more about the member’s own member’s bill that failed to get support in the House, than the one that we’re actually talking about tonight. So let me bring us to the bill that we are actually talking about tonight, and that is the bill of Nicole McKee on the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill.

The main point that I want to make from listening to all of the contributions tonight, which I think that many are missing because they are just wanting to talk to the politics of it all, is that I have failed to be convinced that there is actually a need for what this bill is proposing. It is really clear that the bill proposes unnecessary changes, because the police can already use legislation that we have, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to seize assets based off the crime of firearm trafficking, which has been the subject of many of the contributions tonight. Illegal firearm trafficking is an offence under section 55E of the Arms Act 1983 and is punishable by up to 10 years. Under the Arms Act, it is also unlawful to possess illegal firearms, or without the necessary authorisation. So this means that police can already seize unlawful firearms, even if the crimes committed—wait for it—are below the thresholds in the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, which is what this bill proposes to do by expanding the definition of “significant criminal activity”. I haven’t heard, in any of the contributions tonight, anything to convince me that this bill is required to be able to do all of the things that everybody has mentioned.

I do just want to acknowledge Dr Emily Henderson, my colleague and member of the Justice Committee, and neighbour in the Whangārei electorate, and the perverse outcome that she described could happen with the hypothetical “Uncle Bob” and “Nephew Billy” in this case. So thank you to Emily, who explained for the House what this could mean in practice, and I’m sure that’s not what any of us wants to actually happen.

As I have said, I believe the member’s bill is unnecessary because we already have legislation which enables our police, gives them the tools that they need to address the issues that have been raised, even if they don’t meet the threshold.

In terms of other things that have been raised in the debate to try and strengthen the argument for why this is necessary, again, you have heard the Minister of Police say, the former Minister of Police say, and others making contributions, that we are already working to amend the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to introduce new power, enabling seizures of assets of those associated with gangs. So we are changing legislation but we are also better resourcing our police to actually be able to do this. So one small amendment in an Act that doesn’t have the resources given to it to be able to actually implement it isn’t going to be that effective.

We are being effective. The Government is committed to protecting our communities, and, in the last four years alone, $500 million of cash and assets has been seized from the gangs.

💬 Hon Member: How much?

$500 million.

💬 Hon Member: $500 million?

Yes, that’s right, just in our first term. Introduced in February 2021, Operation Tauwhiro, which is a nationally coordinated police operation cracking down on gangs and organised crime, has seized 1,531 firearms, arrested 1,255 people, seized 53.74 kilograms of methamphetamine, and conducted 926 searches under warrant and 634 warrantless searches. The actual initiatives that we have started and that we are funding are working. And in this Budget, we have announced that we are going to be doing even more in terms of that, with the unit being set up for it this year as well.

So, just in conclusion, as I said at the beginning, I’ve listened to the debate this evening, I have not been convinced by any of the contributions that this particular piece of legislation is necessary; in fact, there already are the powers that exist to be able to do it. On that basis, unfortunately, I won’t be supporting the bill this evening.

What’s fascinating, as you listen to the left wing—or the radical far left, off to my left here in the Green Party, who want to defund the police—is that, according to them, there is absolutely no problem with criminals in New Zealand. There are no problems with criminals with guns! And, lo and behold, there is definitely no problem with gang members with guns committing crime!

Now, some of us live in the real world, which is where six constituents of mine in Glen Innes were shot at. In Wairoa tonight, gang members unleashed numerous rounds into a house. In my electorate alone, we’ve had 30 ram raids. As my colleague Simeon Brown pointed out, we have got more gang members now than police. In fact, the gangs are recruiting, particularly through Corrections—where’s Kelvin Davis? Where is Kelvin Davis on this, by the way?

There’s no problem, according to the left and the far left; it’s all tickety-boo. The problem is—and you can sense it, you can just feel it, if you’re more intuitive in this House. You can just feel the other side knows—they just know—that they should be for this bill. You can absolutely feel it. Because this is a good bill. It’s a simple bill. It’s a simple proposition. That’s illustrated by a couple of ways. We get lectured ad absurdum, ad infinitum, ad boring—probably bad Latin—from the other side of the House. We should always let bills go through the first reading, should always let them go to select committee.

But isn’t it funny, when we’re dealing with crime, gangs, holding people to account, not taking excuses for victims—no, no, Labour and the far left of the Greens: “We’re going to block it.” That’s the first option. The second is, tonight, we’ve heard from one of the other members talking about lived experiences, everything. Well, what is fascinating, to that Labour member: first and foremost, “Lived experience is everything.” is one of the weakest, stupidest irrational arguments possible.

💬 Anna Lorck: Speak to the bill.

💬 Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: You would know, wouldn’t you?

Oh, no, sorry, this is my lived experience! Thanks Labour, just want to put that out there—it’s my lived experience; it’s everything, according to your colleagues. But I just want to note that the member promoting this bill—to Nicole McKee, thank you. I back her lived experience, as a licensed gun-owner and advocate, more than any member of that Labour caucus and the far left, the radical far left which is the Green Party.

What’s so wonderful about this bill is it does two things at once; there’s a wonderful serendipity. And note they’re getting so upset on the other side because, you know, again, it’s just tweaking them. They know they’re wrong. Cross the House, guys; it’ll be good for you. It’ll stretch your legs. It’s great for your coronaries. But the great thing about this bill is it does two things at once. Firstly, it’s a bill which disincentivises having illegal guns. On the other hand—on the other hand—it makes real consequences for those gang members who hold them. It’s so simple. On one hand, don’t own or don’t have an illegal firearm. On the other hand, there’ll be serious consequences if you’re found with one.

To the members of the public watching, it’s just so incredibly simple. Unfortunately, your Government—your Government—doesn’t quite understand it.

💬 Ginny Andersen: Got it now. Got it.

What makes it even more clear is there’s heckling going on at the moment. But you know what it is? It’s just noises. There’s actually no words being used; it’s just noises. I think that sums up the Labour and the far, extreme left of the Greens perfectly. When it comes to crime, when it comes to protecting people through this piece of legislation, let’s be very clear: the centre right, National and ACT, will vote for this. But tonight, the Labour Party and the Green Party, and, I suspect, the Māori Party will vote against it. They will vote for the gangs. They will vote for firearms. They will vote against safety. And they know, deep down, they’re wrong.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Look, that was really interesting. We’ve had some fantastic speeches, but none of them are really talking about this bill. Let’s read the bill, because I’m trying to figure out—so I think what is intended, by reading this, is to increase the power to seize assets if a gang member’s got a gun. I think that’s what it’s trying to do. We’ve heard a whole lot of different stuff tonight from National members, but I think that’s actually what they’re attempting to achieve tonight, not successfully at all. It attempts to amend the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to expand its definition of “significant criminal activity”.

Now, I’d like to remind those members opposite that in the nine years that they were in Government, they promised to switch the onus on organised crime. They promised to switch that onus. The legislation that will be passed in this term that this Government will deliver alongside of firearms prohibition orders (FPOs)—they promised to switch that onus, to make it easier for police when finding assets; that it’s on that person who owns their illegal item to prove that they got it legally. They tried for nine years, alongside FPOs, to get that over the line, and they failed to do it. So this is yet another half-hearted “looking like we’re tough but can’t deliver” antic that we see from those members opposite.

And the reason why Labour doesn’t support this bill is because already there is very good work in this space. The bill proposes unnecessary changes, because police already use the proceeds of the Crimes Act to seize assets based off the crime of firearm trafficking. Illegal firearm trafficking is an offence already under the Arms Act, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. So someone hasn’t done their homework, because there’s already grounds in there to make those changes and to seize assets under existing legislation. This is an age-old problem: not knowing the law that’s there already and not being able to use it in the way that’s needed.

Under the Arms Act, it’s also unlawful to possess illegal firearms, and, lo and behold, guess what? Most gang members don’t have a firearms licence! So “without unnecessary authorisation”—this means that police can seize unlawful firearms even if the crimes committed are below the thresholds of the current Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act. So it really renders this entire bill and the idea behind it redundant. The whole purpose is to establish a regime for the forfeiture of property that has been derived directly or indirectly by significant criminal activity, and it has been an incredibly successful programme. Hundreds of different activities. Fog cannons. We’ve had different programmes in terms of outreach and preventing crime, whether it be through alcohol and drug or other treatment being funded through a programme—where we are smart on crime and take those proceeds and put them in the bank and put it back to addressing those underlying drivers of criminal activity, which we on this side of the House are ready to engage on.

The Government is already making changes to make it illegal for high-risk people to own firearms by introducing firearm prohibition orders, which failed to be introduced by the previous Government. This will strengthen action already being taken to combat the influence of gangs and organised crime and breaching the conditions of a firearm prohibition order. It will be a criminal offence.

I’d like to reiterate that the Government is also already working to amend, as I mentioned earlier, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to introduce a new power enabling seizure of assets of those associated with organised crime where the person’s known legitimate income is likely to have been insufficient to acquire that asset. That is what was attempted for nine years under National and that is not what has been achieved in the past.

This Government has committed to protecting our communities and, over the last four years, $500 million in cash and assets has been seized from criminals by police. Gangs, quite clearly, should not be making money from exploiting our communities. This Government is incredibly clear we will not tolerate organised crime and gangs and we are working hard to disrupt that, and the number one reason we are doing it would be the $94 million invested in this Budget in front-line organised crime. That money has never, ever in the past, under any previous Government, been invested. The 1,800 cops on the front line? Never before. So you can talk tough and you can walk the walk, but you don’t talk to—

Order! The member will not bring the Speaker into the argument.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a debate we’ve had across the House this evening. Look, I want to talk a little bit to some of the things that were raised from the Labour side across the House, because I genuinely think that they’ve lost the entire concept of what this bill is actually about. What I’ve heard over there from the Minister of Police is that, “Well, Nicole, your bill is not actually going to make that much disruption, so we don’t want to support it.” And the former Minister of Police had to be told to sit down so many times because he couldn’t actually get to the bill itself, you know, so when I hear some of the rhetoric that is coming from across the House, I think I actually need to explain the bill again. Because the Labour member who wanted to talk about Uncle Bob and nephew Billy—let’s just run through that scenario again, shall we?

So Uncle Bob has a firearms licence and it’s expired, and nephew Billy belongs to a gang and he comes over to Uncle Bob’s house, which is being raided and we’re saying that his gun should not be taken away. So we’ve got a law that’s been broken already. He’s in illegal possession of a firearm because his licence has expired, and 250,000 people who have licences at the moment cannot hold on to their firearms once their licences have expired. That’s an illegal thing. There also has to be significant criminal activity occurring in that place. Now, I know that Labour do like to give gangs their licences, but if there is a significant criminal activity taking place at Uncle Bob’s place when nephew Billy turns up, then we’ve got to wonder what on earth Uncle Bob was doing with a firearms licence in the first place. This comes down to fit and proper, and maybe we should go back to the royal commission of inquiry’s recommendations, which said we should have a separate independent authority administrating firearms legislation. But I am going off topic and I will bring it back in.

We have members not only of gangs, but criminals, those that are wanting to become gang members, using illegally held firearms illegally. This has occurred already—this evening we are hearing reports of a house in Wairoa being shotgunned and a child’s bedroom being shotgunned by gang members retaliating to another firearm gang attack. Now, this bill, it’s not about seizing firearms. It’s about having a disincentive for gang members to be in possession of illegally held firearms. It’s about adding a new threshold to freeze and seize assets.

As I had mentioned in my earlier speech, if we’re going to have a good economy and a thriving community, we need to make sure that we have trust in our Government and also our police. We are losing that at the moment because our homes are being shot up by gang members. And that is soft. That is soft on punishment, it is soft on action, it is soft on crime, and ACT will not have a bar of it. We want to make sure that our communities can thrive. They need to, especially when we’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

So let’s take away the bling and the money from the gangs, because quite frankly that’s all they care about. You can do it by adding an illegally held firearm at the time that there is a raid at a place where there is significant criminal activity taking place. If you add an illegally held firearm, it becomes the new threshold to freeze and seize, and we know that that will actually have an effect on the gangs. We know that. It’s a pity that the Government doesn’t, and it’s a pity that the Government are more interested in handing out $2.75 billion to the gangs instead of using $626 million to help really fight organised crime. It’s a pity, but we’re not going to stop. We’re not going to stop, we’re going to keep on going, because our law and order policies are there for New Zealand. It’s to make our communities thrive, it’s to help boost our economy, and it’s to make sure that those licenced firearm owners who Labour just chuck in the same box as gang members are actually recognised for the fit and proper people that they are. I’m proud to be a part of that and to be one of them and to represent. Thank you.