Gangs Bill, Sentencing Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill.

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

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Until the committee of the whole House stage, these bills were progressed through the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill. This is one of the headline pieces of work that came out of the National Party election manifesto, and I’m pleased to be bringing it to this final stage of the House, and I acknowledge all the hard work that has got us to this point, including by the criminal justice policy team and by the Parliamentary Counsel Office drafters.

I want to expend my thanks to the Justice Committee and its chair, James Meager, for their thorough consideration of the bill following public submissions and for the advice they gave to refine and strengthen the legislation. The bill is one part of our plan to restore law and order in this country because New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their communities.

Gang membership has increased by 51 percent over the past five years, alongside violent crime increasing by 33 percent. We need a firmer response. Gangs peddle misery and intimidation throughout our communities, and this Government is determined to give police and the courts the powers they need to deal with them.

Just one in every 400 New Zealanders are identified as gang members, yet they are linked to nearly one in five serious violent crime offences and around one in five homicides, around one in four kidnapping and abductions, and one in four of all crimes caused by illicit drug offences. A very small section of our society is associated with and linked to a very significant part of the overall serious violent crime in our communities. Let’s get real about the impact of gangs in our community. They are causing mayhem on our streets and no effort to reduce serious crime will succeed unless we make progress against gangs.

The passage of these bills will mean the implementation of four new policies to target gangs. First, the Gangs Bill introduces a comprehensive gang insignia ban outlawing the display of gang patches in public places at all times. This extends the current ban, which applies only to Government premises and will help diminish the status of gangs and reduce the fear and intimidation that patches cause in our community. Since the bill was introduced, I’ve worked to strengthen this policy so that the justice system can effectively respond to anyone who repeatedly defies the patch ban. If an offender is convicted three times within five years, a court order will be made against them, banning them from owning any gang insignia for the next five years and preventing them from continuing to reoffend. It will be uncomfortable for them.

Secondly, the bill creates a new dispersal power which police can use to stop gang members from gathering in public. A dispersal notice will require the group to leave an area and not associate in public for seven days. This tool will enable the police to disrupt gatherings that can escalate into criminal behaviour. Gangs gather in public places in order to create fear in our communities and to intimidate law-abiding Kiwis. Time and again, we’ve seen criminal gangs block roads, harass the public, and disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens going about their business peacefully. The public should no longer have to put up with this sort of behaviour.

To ensure the safety of officers, police can issue the dispersal notice at the time of the gathering or the police can decide it would be more appropriate to issue the notice at a later time. The notice will apply for the next seven days, preventing the group from reconvening again in public. We recognise there needs to be exemptions, and the dispersal notice will not apply to public meetings of immediate family members or where people need to associate for lawful purposes such as work, education, or healthcare. There’s also an ability to apply to the Commissioner of Police for an exemption for other lawful purposes.

The third thing the bill does is create non-consorting orders. This order is issued by the court and will require specified people not to associate or communicate for three years. Crimes like the importation and sale of illegal drugs, of course, require coordination and planning. Police often know exactly who the criminals are but are powerless to prevent them from planning and committing these crimes before it’s too late. We believe the police should be able to get on and act on the intelligence they have and apply to the court to stop known gang offenders from associating or communicating with one another, to keep our communities safe. As with dispersal notices, our bill recognises that some association or communication may be required for lawful purposes. Exemptions are provided for immediate family and lawful purposes such as work, education, and healthcare. The court can also consider applications for exemptions for other lawful purposes.

The Sentencing Amendment Act will allow courts to more easily consider a person’s gang membership when sentencing them for crime. This will ensure the courts are not unduly limited in using gang membership as an aggravating factor. I expect this will lead to tougher sentences for gang members and send a strong message that the unlawful activities of gangs will not be tolerated.

The Government’s putting gang members on notice. Our message to them is clear: your behaviour is not tolerated and Parliament is determined to give police extra tools to disrupt your illegal activities.

I look forward to the commencement of this bill in November so that law-abiding Kiwis can enjoy the summer with less risk of violent crime, drug dealing, and general fear, disruption, and intimidation, which gangs have gotten away with peddling for far too long. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Labour opposes this bill for a number of reasons, but the most invidious part of this bill—apart from the way in which it progressed through this House—is the prohibition on a person having gang insignia in a private residence, and I really want to touch on that today.

The idea of a private residence being a particular sanctuary that should only be invaded by the State in the most necessary of circumstances is one of the most longstanding principles of our law. It was in 1604 that the famous quote was said by Lord Justice Coke, “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress”—400 years ago. That theory, that principle, that fundamental constitutional principle, has flowed through many jurisdictions. It was in 1890 that the Justice of the US Supreme Court said, “The right to be let alone [is] the most comprehensive of rights, and the most valued by civilised [people].” To put it in more plain language: it was Mrs Patrick Campbell, actual name Beatrice Rose Stella, who said “I don’t care what they do, as long as they don’t do it in the street and scare the horses.”—a friend of Oscar Wilde.

Now, that captures it, right? This is actually about what goes on in the street and what goes on in private. We get the intimidation in public places issue; it’s real. We agree that it needs to be addressed, but no one is intimidated by a gang patch in someone’s top drawer. Or to use a more antipodean reference, Darryl Kerrigan: “It’s not a house, it’s a home. A man’s home is his castle.” Great legal document, the movie The Castle—a little bit of levity but it’s a serious point that what we have here is a highly invasive right.

To hear the Minister stand up in question time today and say with a straight face that he hadn’t talked to the Attorney-General about this invasion of fundamental rights—he should hang his head. I hope the Attorney-General raises it with him. There is a document here dated 7 March which says, “Make sure this briefing is shared with the Attorney-General.” Even though the document says to share it, he hasn’t talked to her about it. I find that a dereliction of this Minister’s duty. He should be ashamed of himself.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: She can read.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Don’t be too sure. That’s the fundamental objection to this bill. And let’s just be clear: the Minister knows full well what’s wrong with this, because he had a briefing in 2023. He hasn’t given it to me yet—but, hopefully, he will soon—but it’s referred to where it says, “Previous advice outlined particular concerns of the bespoke search power.” That is to say, the ability to enter someone’s home and look for a gang patch, even though they haven’t worn it in an intimidating manner outside. Then in the footnote, just tucked away in the footnote, it says this: “It would represent a shift in the purpose of searches that is inconsistent with the rule of law, moving them away from being tools for collecting evidence of criminal offending.” That’s right, because the police will use the power to enter someone’s home to look for a gang patch to give it a shakedown.

The document itself again—that very same document, and I’m reading from a briefing of the Ministry of Justice of 7 June 2024—makes it clear what the dangers are. If you’re pursuing an offence—someone’s got a firearm, they’ve run into a house, then you’re looking for that firearm—but if you’re just wondering whether they’ve got a gang patch that they’re not entitled to, you’re going to shake down the entire house. And you know what? You might find some other stuff too. That is a recipe for abuse of power. That’s what the Ministry of Justice is saying there. That Minister of Justice, his job is to protect rights and to not give the Minister of Police and the police everything they ask for, because they ask for a lot. He has just buckled, and what we see—without the Attorney-General having been consulted by him—is a real and significant erosion of rights in this country.

I know that a lot of people will say, “It’s OK, it’s only gang members.” Well, there’s two things to say about that. Human rights are called human rights because they’re universal, and we’ve got to be very cautious about saying, “Well, we don’t like that group of people. They’re not the kind of members of society I like, so they shouldn’t enjoy the same rights as everyone else.”

The second thing I’ve got to say about that is that it’s not just those people, because those people live in houses with others, other people who may not even know that the order’s in place. Let’s be honest, these searches are not conducted on notice at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. They’re conducted without notice, and if it’s a gang house, it won’t be one officer and it won’t be two officers; it will be many officers, because that’s what you have to do when you’re dealing with risky situations. It says, “This will come at a high cost to whānau and communities in which gang members reside. Searches can be intrusive, disruptive, and traumatic for children and other whānau who reside with the person who is subject to the search.” That’s what’s going to happen. Whilst some of our homes may be our castles, there’s a whole section of our community where they now are not, where that fundamental principle of the sanctity of a private residence has been utterly undercut and undermined.

We get search, right? A right to search, sometimes without a warrant, is needed. But what is the proportionality here? What is the risk of someone’s gang insignia—a bandana, a ring, a jacket—sitting in a wardrobe? Where is the harm? Where is the victim? There isn’t one. There’s no harm and no victim. It’s essentially a tool for harassment of gang members so that they give it up. Now, I get that we don’t want gang membership—that’s all good—but this kind of invasion that intrudes into other people’s spaces is just an absolute overreach.

One other thing: we think we’ve got this gang member, this bad person, and we’re looking for that person’s gang patch. Oh, no, it just so happens that the nephew is staying in the spare room and the nephew has gang connections. It’s not even the same gang. So, by association, because uncle has extended hospitality to his nephew and his nephew has gang connections, by that association, by giving shelter to that other person who’s a member of a gang, you’re guilty. That is frankly unbelievable. It’s so easy to dismiss this by saying, “They’re gang members”, but the fact of the matter is that gang members belong to communities and the communities here are harmed.

I haven’t touched on so many other points in respect of this bill, and I’ll leave those to my colleagues who are more than able to talk about them, but the bill itself is not workable. I mean, these dispersal notices—the idea that we’re going to disperse gang members and email them their notices by way of service is frankly laughable. This bill is largely window dressing, and the idea that a flag on a boat is prohibited but a flag on a house is not is incoherent. This bill is so poorly put together, so unprincipled, that it makes no sense. Yes, we’ve got to do something about gangs, but addressing the causes and harms of gangs is what we should be doing. Waving our hands and making noises about gangs in this kind of offensive way serves no purpose whatsoever.

Just before the last speaker I omitted to say the question is that the motion be agreed to. The question is that the motion be agreed to, and I call Tamatha Paul.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to make our thoughts known about the Gangs Bill. What I want people to understand about this bill and about the Government’s attack on gangs is that it is simply a marketing exercise. It is a PR strategy to look tough on crime but does nothing to make our communities tangibly safer. It does nothing to address the reasons why people join gangs in the first place, and does nothing to reduce people’s reasons as to why they join gangs. It will not increase public safety, but it will result in people being put into prison, and for longer, and to increase the length of those sentences due to their affiliations with gangs. The main point that we want to make, and the main point that recent research and evidence has made over the years, is we cannot arrest our way out of the gang problem.

Let’s start with who are in gangs in the first place, because that’s something that we never talk about in this House. The contributing factors to people joining gangs in the first place are simple—three things: poverty, trauma, and colonisation. The reason that I say that is because many people join gangs because they genuinely believe that that is their only pathway towards having any money. Those who join gangs often come from the most highly deprived communities where there aren’t job opportunities, where the only opportunity that you have is actually to be on the benefit because there are no jobs in those communities. If you’re faced with the task of having to put food on the table and pay your bills, sometimes the only option you might have is to join a gang. You need only to watch Dave Letele’s series on gangs, which is on TVNZ for free, where he talks to gang members and often they talk about the driving factor that poverty played in them joining gangs in the first place.

The second reason that people are in gangs is due to the trauma and the abuse that they experienced as children. We know that because 80 to 90 percent of gang members experienced abuse in State care. We know that because we had the report—the largest royal commission inquiry in the history of this country—looking into abuse in State care that said that 80 to 90 percent of those gang members have experienced harm at the hands of the State.

The other reason that people join gangs is, of course, the impacts of colonisation. The reason that I say that is because 75 percent of gang members are Māori. We understand the drivers of gang membership: it’s poverty, it’s trauma, and it’s the impacts of colonisation. That is backed up in the regulatory impact statement on this bill, and I want to read a quote: “A significant portion of gang members have also been victims of violence, poverty, and neglect, including family violence, intimate partner violence, and drug or alcohol abuse. While these elements exist in all communities, gangs serve as a concentration zone for individuals with a higher risk of exhibiting anti-social behaviour. These individuals tend to live in the most deprived communities and have high rates of unemployment.” We need to look at the reasons why people feel that they need to join gangs in the first place. If we want to reduce people joining gangs in the first place, if we want to reduce that gang membership, then we have to look at the reasons why people join them in the first place.

Now, the other reason that we don’t support this bill is because it completely ignores people’s human rights. I completely agree with my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb that human rights are afforded to people by virtue of being human beings. Just because you are a gang member or just because you’re in prison or just because this House has designated you as being less worthy of human rights—you are still entitled to your human rights. This bill completely flouts human rights.

Let’s talk about how it does that. The freedom of expression: when has it ever been acceptable—and I think this is good for the ACT Party to listen to this, as a party that claims to champion human rights and the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech—for the Government to tell people what they can and can’t wear? There’s no precedent for that, yet this one creates that. The freedom of peaceful assembly: if there are a group of people who are together, gang members or not, if they’re not committing a crime, then why can’t they be together in a public place? Again, the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. This bill means that more people will be subject to unfair and unreasonable searches.

Now, you look at some of the changes that have been made to this bill throughout the process, like clause 8A, which talks about the possession of gang insignia and simply possessing a patch within your home. That is a massive Government overreach for the Government to determine what you can and can’t have in your home. That has nothing to do with public safety. How are the public even meant to be intimidated by something that they can’t even see and are not even impacted by?

This bill, in my eyes, is about persecuting Māori, because not all gangs have been treated equally in this bill. We just heard about that at question time: what about white supremacists? What about swastikas? What about other white supremacist symbols? They haven’t been prohibited as part of this bill, but they cause fear and intimidation. Where’s their mention in this bill? There is none, because they’re not mentioned in the gang list as part of this bill, and the gang insignia doesn’t include some of the most offensive symbols in this country.

I want to mention something that was in the regulatory impact statement on this bill, again, and the advice on this bill says, “Targeting gangs will affect Māori and their whānau the most … As is reflected in the research, gang members are disproportionately young, male, live in more deprived communities, and as noted in the overview three-quarters of those on the National Gang List are Māori. Any policies that impact gangs will therefore disproportionately impact Māori.” We know that international application of some of the powers in this bill—for example, the non-consorting orders—have been used disproportionately against young indigenous people, as I have made that point repeatedly throughout this bill process.

We’re worried about the police’s ability to actually implement this bill, but we’re also worried about the police’s ability to be able to distinguish what is gang insignia and what isn’t gang insignia. I made this point earlier this morning: if they see a bulldog, as associated with the Mongrel Mob, but it’s actually a Canterbury Bulldogs T-shirt, are they going to think that that’s a gang insignia? If they, say, see a fist, which is associated with Black Power, are they going to think that that is a gang insignia when it could be something completely innocent and unrelated such as a Black Lives Matter T-shirt or a workers’ rights T-shirt? If they see a skull on a T-shirt and that person is Māori, could they assume that that was a Head Hunters logo? We feel like the bill hasn’t been clear enough about what constitutes gang insignia.

To summarise, we need to stop treating lawmaking as a PR exercise. If the Government is serious about reducing gang membership, they need to look at the research and the evidence as to who makes up gang members and what the drivers of that membership are and address those, as opposed to having this bill, which will only result in more people being in prison—more wasted human potential—and which will not make our communities any safer. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I always enjoy the opportunity to debate these sorts of issues in the House as we come now to the third reading of the gangs legislation bill and Sentencing Amendment Bill. Many questions I actually want to pose to the Opposition members. The Green member was talking about Māoridom and the suffering that happens therein by virtue of association with gangs. Māori by population make up a million people in New Zealand—a million; I’ve just googled the stats—so, essentially, just close to one-fifth.

By virtue of the gang numbers as quickly as I could find it on dear old Google, there’s 5,000 of those that are Māori and disproportionately Māori women, not Māori men. Fifty-three percent of Māori men are in prison—53 percent of those that are in prison are Māori men, I beg your pardon; 67 percent of women. A million New Zealanders that happen to be Māori are not in prison. I think we’re having an ideological conversation here today about breaking the law, intimidating law-abiding New Zealanders who just want to go about their daily lives.

Now, I live in Northland, quite often venture into the Far North—awesome place. I spend a bit of time in Kaikohe—at certain times of the day that’s a pretty scary proposition for certain people because there is a significant gang presence. Please, I ask this House to indulge in common sense. For a lot of New Zealanders, that is frightening. By virtue of the nature of being in a gang, we can have a wider conversation about the societal drivers of young Māori men disproportionately drawing down on wanting to be in a gang. We understand what they are; the member rightly pointed it out: poor employment, domestic violence perpetrated often against them. But why are we not talking about the victims of crime? It’s so often, to the member’s remarks about Māori and Māoridom—if I pronounce it correctly—the victims are disproportionately Māori.

Go to some of our poorest regions in New Zealand who have the very issues that the member raised—poor employment, job losses, fractured employment at the very best, a lot of issues with domestic violence, a lot of issues with poor policing by virtue of resources; the myriad of reasons that we find ourselves in societal decline in these areas where gangs have run amok—I don’t think, as we pass this legislation into law, that anyone worth their salt can genuinely come into this House and say that we don’t have a gang problem. We’ve got a gang problem. We’ve got a problem with some of our young people who happen to be Māori choosing that as a pathway to a future. That is a nonsense. I don’t pick winners and losers based on race; I pick people. They either want to be in there or they don’t. They break the law or they don’t.

We have a prison system that reconciles those that have broken the law and those that haven’t. Yes, the member makes some very salient remarks about the societal drivers of gang membership and joining them, but let’s be real here: there’s a million Māori people and overwhelmingly they’re not in gangs. They’re bloody good people going about their lives, adding to New Zealand society, the tax take, the overall wellbeing of New Zealand as a whole. They’re not gang members, they’re not out intimidating people on motorbikes, flipping the bird, and ultimately making people’s life pretty miserable.

There’s a better opportunity and it is employment. Let’s find these people jobs. Let’s get our young Māori men and women in schools—keep them in schools. We can have a wider conversation around that. But this bill, to do with gangs, is addressing the core drivers of gang intimidation. I think, at risk of over-litigating the point, this bill is addressing that runaway problem and the victims of crime and the victims—and the dear old New Zealander that just wants to go about their daily lives without being intimidated. That includes the million Māori people that aren’t part of any sort of gang affiliation. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill. Firstly, I’d just like to speak on the Sentencing Amendment Bill. It has always been New Zealand First’s policy to see it as an aggravating factor to be a gang member while you’re being sentenced, so today seeing that implemented is something that we have campaigned on and is now being implemented into legislation.

This also sends a strong message to gang members that we’re serious about cracking down on gang numbers. It gives police the tools that they need to deal with gang behaviour. The other side of the House doesn’t believe that is a problem, but intimidation by gangs is a serious matter, and we heard through the election campaign how people are fed up being fearful of gang behaviour, how they are feeling unsafe in their communities and while they’re at home and, when they go out to participate in public, are having gangs around—their intimidating behaviour is absolutely unbearable for people, it is harmful, and it’s causing misery in our communities. This bill actually does something about that.

It’s also about the broader impacts of gangs and the gangs’ crimes—they’re bringing in drugs, the crime that they’re causing in our communities. It is about the behaviour of gang members, and it is about their involvement in organised crime. This is the important part to this: in 2017, there were just over 5,000 registered gang members; by 2023, we had over 8,600 members, a 50 percent increase—a 50 percent increase—because of that side of the House. That side of the House failed to keep gangs under control. They poured millions of dollars—taxpayers’ dollars—and gave it to gangs. Their way of fixing gang behaviour was to give them money. No wonder people were joining gangs, because it was a free money tree.

Restoring law and order is about this side of the House and this Government—and New Zealand First will restore law and order. It is about gang patches and banning those gang patches. It is about dispersal notices and giving the tools to police to actually move gang members on. It’s also about non-association powers, to actually say to gang members, “You are not associating with each other.”—to actually stop it.

What I want to come back to is something that was said in the House in the second reading. It was asked, “Who would you rather be in a dark alley with: a policeman or a gang member?” For this side of the House, this is the news that you need to hear today: there is going to be less gang members in alleyways, because they’re going to be locked up, because police have got the tools to deal with that. Just for the record, I would rather be with a policeman in a dark alley any day of the week than a gang member, and on that, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Right, the next call is a split call. I call Takutai—

Hon Willie Jackson: —the 501s, you fool!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me while the Speaker’s talking, and we won’t have personal—

Jamie Arbuckle: Point of order—point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I know what the point of order is. The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise for calling an individual a fool, please, Mr Willie Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: I withdraw and apologise, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I want to start with: I’m not intimidated by a gang patch—I’m not intimidated. Our marae open up space for whānau. We’re not afraid, and we do that on a daily basis. It is not a space that a bill can determine who and what can come on to our marae. It is our tino rangatiratanga that we determine what and who can come on. We set the parameters, we set the rules, and everybody abides by that. But that’s how we behave on a marae. This is not something that we do lightly, either. We have kaumātua and kuia that uphold those tikanga. You may laugh about it, but it’s not a laughing matter on our marae. Our tikanga is the way we behave. We will uphold that.

This bill puts our whānau in a position where they are judged, where they are made to feel like they are not valued, where they are made to feel like they are nothing. Our people are not nothing. Our people wear a gang patch. Actually, do you know what we do? We actually have a kōrero. We actually have wānanga with them. We actually bring them into a space and say, “What is happening? How can we awhi you to make better choices? What programmes can we develop to help?” That’s what we need to do. That’s a solution. That’s what we do through Whānau Ora, through our marae, through Māori providers. We wānanga, we hui with whānau. I want to encourage that.

This bill is going to put our whānau backwards. This bill will put our people even further backwards in what they’re doing today. It’s not going to help us at all. Our people deserve to be treated better. Like I said in question time, why is it that swastikas are not part of the legislation? Why is it that Black Power insignia is named and a swastika isn’t? Why aren’t white supremacist gangs named? Why is it just those of us who are brown? I don’t understand that. It’s unfair for our people to be treated that way.

We will never agree to this bill. We absolutely do not support it. It’s our right to ensure that our marae, our tikanga are not wavered so that they can make the decisions that they need to for our people. Kia ora.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to speak to this legislation, which we disdain. We visited Waikeria Prison on the day before the koroneihana of the now late King, and we had a very moving welcome there by members of the iwi unit—the Te Ao Marama Unit—who shared some of their life experience.

In the heart of the Waikato—and this speaks to the context of the legislation—it’s impossible for us to not consider that there’s a relationship between colonisation and the disenfranchisement of Māori. Of course it would be a deep denial of our history and the facts of our present day to do that. In the heart of the Waikato—the land that was invaded and confiscated by raupatu and the atrocities committed—it’s hard to not observe that the descendants of the people from whom the land was stolen are now locked up in a prison built by the Crown, who stole the land, on the land that was stolen. The prison is built on the land that was stolen. When we consider that deep history of disenfranchisement, of theft, of raupatu, of atrocity, it gives us some context for the ongoing disenfranchisement of Māori—the 80 to 90 percent in State care who are now members of gangs.

They had no safe place in our society. Maybe they were removed from an abusive domestic situation—maybe they were rightly removed—and then they were put into a State care situation and they were abused again. They had nowhere to go, and perhaps the gang was the only refuge on this earth where they felt they could be safe, and they went to that refuge and they found that they could get a home there. They had a place to exist—the despised of our society—and now, through this legislation, we’re coming for them there too. We’re going to say, “You must disdain and disabide yourself and remove yourself from this one place where you had refuge.”—this community that happens to be a gang; that place that was better than nowhere—“You need to leave that now too.”

“And as much as you have done it unto me, one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.”—this is the saying from Matthew; the saying that you go and clothe the naked and you feed the hungry and you visit those in prison. I wonder if our Christian colleagues on the other side of the House have fed the hungry, have visited those in prison, have sought to reach a hand across to understand what is the experience of these people who are in gangs—have approached them not with aggression, not with vengeance, but with compassion and with empathy.

Hon Karen Chhour: Did they approach their victims with compassion?

STEVE ABEL: They are themselves victims, and you know it. You know they are themselves victims, and you are victimising victims. You’re re-victimising people by displacing them.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please don’t use the word “you”, Mr Abel. Thank you.

STEVE ABEL: Pardon me, Madam Speaker. What I would say is that I remember a time in my lifetime when a more enlightened, in this regard at least, leader of the National Party shook hands with members of the gangs, visited them on marae, and on his death, Sir Robert Muldoon had Black Power performing a haka at his funeral. He approached the question of those who are the most rejected by our society with compassion. He approached the question with compassion and, until such time as we are able to do that, we will not solve this problem, as my colleague Tamatha Paul pointed out.

I attended the funeral of King Tuheitia. It was a very moving and profound experience and, frankly, a privilege to be a New Zealander and to be able to attend that and be made so welcome by the iwi of Waikato-Tainui. There were gang insignia there on the road—multiple gang insignia—attending the hui alongside uniformed police, and they were there to honour the Māori King. Under this law, would those police be obliged to arrest those gang members in their insignia paying tribute at a funeral? Will funerals be exempt from this? Will marae? The principle that a man’s home is his castle is enshrined to Māori both in article 3 of the Treaty and in article 2, tino rangatiratanga, the sanctity of Māori resources and taonga. This legislation breaches both of those principles, both the English law that my colleague Duncan Webb spoke about and the principle of tino rangatiratanga.

This law is an affront to everything decent that we as a society should stand for, and it is exactly the sort of lockjaw, right-wing rubbish that we do not need in this world.

I’d like to quote from an article published on stuff.co.nz on 17 March 2021, and it goes like this: “Two men who went cruising the streets looking for … rival gang members, ended up shooting an innocent, random stranger and killing him. … They pulled up next to two other men before spotting Samiuela … Tupou at Ōtāhuhu’s Seaside Park. They chose Tupou only because of the colour of his clothing. [They] shot Tupou three times. Tupou was only 21 years old and worked as a machine operator to support his parents. He was not a gang member or even affiliated with a gang … He was murdered only because he chose to wear blue that day.”

The Opposition say they’re not intimidated by gang patches. Well, I wonder if they’ve asked the victims who have been kidnapped, raped, and tortured by patched gang members whether they are intimidated by gang patches. The Opposition say they’re not concerned about that, but they are concerned about the impact that the removal of gang patches will have on the gang members. None of them has asked what those gang members have done to earn those gang patches, and I’ll tell them. I’ll quote from a Radio New Zealand article from 11 February 2014: “A court has heard how the man accused of murdering Christchurch woman, Mellory Manning, barked like a dog and gave Nazi salutes as he attacked her during an initiation to the Mongrel Mob gang.” That’s what we’re talking about.

We must eradicate gangs and we must eradicate the causes of gangs. This bill isn’t the whole solution, but it is a step in the right direction. I commend the bill to the House.

We’re here talking about this incredibly important kaupapa. I acknowledge the kōrero of the previous member James Meager. It is a rightful kōrero and it’s something that many of us have dealt with for many, many years. However, we cannot go along with this type of legislation.

I’ve been involved with gangs most of my life, in terms of working with them at the coalface. Some of them have been my friends. Some of them have been relations. A number of them have let me down big time—big time—and my mother, who was 20 years on the Parole Board, sadly, had a lot of them coming around to our home, working with them, counselling them, working through the complexities of their lives. When we see gangs, we just don’t see gangsters, Mark. We don’t just see gangsters; we see our people, we see our whānau. And as much as it disgusts the House—and believe you me, Mr Cameron, it disgusts us too—we can’t walk away from them. They are part of us; they’ll always be part of us. To walk away from them and just come up with a gang patch law, that’s not going to do the business. The complexities of how so many of our wider whānau end up in prison demand more from us as a Parliament than just a nonsense gang legislation amendment Act.

The findings of the royal commission on abuse in State care suggest that 80 to 90 percent of gang members were victims of abuse—victims of abuse! Now, this Government, to their credit, has been very supportive of those victims, and we saw that as we had a bipartisan day in the House. You can’t have that type of day, you can’t have that type of commitment, and then the next day want to imprison half of the Māori population in gangs. It just doesn’t work like that. If we’re serious as a Parliament about removing the social harm caused by gangs, we would be looking to stop our kids being abused in State care in the first place.

This legislation isn’t an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Many of our people are just seeing it as a prison cell at the bottom of the cliff. I find it insulting when we ignore the reason why people join gangs at the same time as the ACT Party is stripping section 7AA from Oranga Tamariki. That clause will save our kids in terms of abuse in State care and joining gangs in the first place. It was a clause well thought out by Te Pāti Māori and the National Party. Bill English and others saw the strength of 7AA in terms of saving our kids’ lives. This has been such a contentious kaupapa with te ao Māori, but what does this Government do? Remove 7AA. This heavy-handed approach is doing no good in terms of our community. We’re just pandering to the “Let’s be tough on crime brigade”, rather than finding actual solutions. It’s the usual war on crime strategy that has caused more misery than it has healed.

Look, no one has time for organised crime, but what’s being mooted here is simply a justification by the Government—who love, sadly, using Māori as a punching bag—to storm a tangi to remove a gang patch. That’s what we’re talking about. Christopher Luxon told the country during the Paddy Gower election debate that he would demand 500 heavily armed police to storm a gang funeral just to remove a gang patch. I mean, how ridiculous is that? So few people have been to tangi. I meet Pākehā people—and it’s not their fault at all, but a lot of people have not been to our tangis and that. They don’t understand the tikanga. They don’t understand the process. They don’t understand that when gang members walk in, we get irritated too, but we don’t turn away our own whānau. What is the Government suggesting? They’re going to storm the tangi and rip out people? It’s just a nonsense. And Māori police officers no doubt will be at the forefront of that. This is what Christopher Luxon said.

This gangs legislation amendment will not make New Zealand safer, as far as we’re concerned. It will just greenlight over-the-top stunts like removing these patches from tangi or, even worse, as Duncan Webb said, allowing people’s homes to be invaded. I mean, how ridiculous is that? Has the Government and have police not learnt anything from what’s happened in the past with regards to police actions? We should never forget the Tūhoe raids of 2007, where police breached our people’s rights, where we had guns on school buses—you have to go back if you have not seen the Tūhoe raids, and you will see how our people’s rights were breached. And now we’re talking about people entering homes to get patches. Who are they going to send into the people’s homes? The Māori police officers, like they did in Tūhoe? That’s not progress. We’re talking about hurting people, hurting whānau.

We empathise with the Government in terms of the crimes going on out there, but there are better ways to do things. Our people who’ve been out there are working with you right now. I want to salute some of those people. Denis O’Reilly, who Stevie Abel talked about—Denis O’Reilly would work with this Government at the top of a hat. He’s the guy who worked with Rob Muldoon. He’s the guy who worked with the National Party. He’s the guy who worked with me. He’s the guy who’ll work with Tama Potaka and anybody on that side to turn things around. I want to salute Denis O’Reilly today. He’s also very clear that this getting-rid-of-patches law will be of no use and will just cause further social disharmony. The way forward is not to rip the patches from Denis O’Reilly and his team, but to work with them and find work with them and do the type of mahi we’re talking about.

I want to salute Eugene Ryder, who I think appeared before the select committee, who is working with his people at the coalface to turn their lives around. Eugene Ryder will say the same thing as Denis O’Reilly, that just taking these patches off gang members won’t make things a lot different. They’ll just wear different colours. I salute Eugene Ryder for his work.

I salute David Letele, a good friend who I went to school with, who was a mob boss who did 10 years, who today works in the Grace Foundation, has been with the current police Minister, Mark Mitchell, who was surprised at the type of work that David Letele does in the communities. This guy’s got no time for gangs. This guy will look them in the eye and say, “Take that patch off.” This guy is saying very clearly that this patch law will not work. We should be listening to wonderful leaders like David Letele. I’m talking about David Letele senior; I’m not talking about David Letele junior, who does some wonderful work too. When you have a man who was the mob boss, who did 10 years in prison, whose life now is absolutely committed to turning around people’s lives, has no time for gang members, you should listen—you should actually listen. He knows what works. What works is mahi. What works is knitting communities together. What works is giving people a sense of purpose, not just playing tough guy.

I want to salute Martin Cooper today. As we know, he does wonderful work at Takutai’s marae at Manurewa. He’s been a kaumātua for them, former Black Power boss on my paepae at Ngā Whare Waatea—turned his life around, spends his days working with young people, turning their lives around. He is absolutely opposed to this law. I also want to salute one of our wāhine out there, Paula Ormsby, who’s fabulous with her work down in the Tainui—you know, really worked well with us. Again, she understands how fragile this law is. And finally, Fa’afete Taito, or Fete, who’s a former King Cobras boss.

You see, not all former gang members are bad. In fact, so many of them have turned their lives around. I’m so proud of the work they’re doing. We have to work alongside these people. We’re working against them at the moment. This Government is working against them. I salute all those people. This is the wrong legislation that we have in front of us today. Kia ora tātou.

It gives me great pleasure to rise on this third reading of the Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill. The Opposition tells us we don’t understand the gangs and they tell us, “Let’s address the causes of gangs.”

Hon Willie Jackson: Have you ever met one?

CAMERON BREWER: Willie Jackson says there are better ways. Well, frankly, I don’t want to understand gangs, because we know enough. We know enough about the misery that they peddle in our community. This is a great day for New Zealand. This is a great day for New Zealanders. They will be watching and they will be very happy with the direction of this Government, that it’s delivering on this promise. This Government is banning all gang insignia in public places because New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their communities. We are cracking down on gangs. That’s what the New Zealand public wants us to do and that’s what we are delivering today. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of the most irritating parts of this debate, not only today but throughout this process, has been on one hand listening to the thoughtful contributions from lived experience, from learned exploration of the ideas, from people who know other people or who are those people who have tried to conceptualise a problem and actually figure out what it means and what we can do about it; and, on the other hand, hearing from the contributions from the other side of the House that are vacuous, silly, lightweight, and pathetic, including some of the contributions that have been made here today. All due respect to the member from the ACT Party, but his opening spiel told us nothing about the problem. You’re on the wrong track, buddy, so just, yeah, think about it.

We’ve heard here today about the fact that gangs are a problem, and of course they are. Crime is a problem. No one’s sticking up for gangs. The pathway that people end up in gangs is also heartbreaking—no one’s disputing that. The huge amount of work that people need to do to turn lives around and to make society better for everyone is commendable—no one’s disputing that—but ripping the gang patches off the backs of people is not going to solve the problem, and yet this is the solution before us according to the Government. All talk, no trousers. I agree with my Green colleague: it’s a marketing, PR exercise. It’s vacuous, it’s invalid, and it’s infuriating that we’re sitting here today.

We know it’s a flawed process. We know that there were even last-minute amendments that were brought into the House at the last minute, even though discussions were being held as early as March. We know, therefore, that that indicates that the Government and both Ministers, most certainly, are scrambling around, trying to find solutions, trying to plug gaps because they’ve looked at this from the wrong way. They’ve looked at this as a marketing exercise, instead of something with substantive value, and they’re making it up on the hoof. We know that there are impractical enforcement obligations around this. We talked before throughout this process about the fact—how are police going to monitor this? How are police going to enforce this? Some of the contingencies and some of the scenarios when you allow yourselves to think through it properly are just utterly ridiculous. We know it’s not supported by evidence.

We’ve had gang patch bans and gang bans and things like that in New Zealand before. We’ve talked about it in prior readings when we looked at the Whanganui example. And the most incredulous thing about that was actually asking Michael Laws, who was mayor at the time, “How did that work out?” He did a whole speech about how fabulous it was and we should do it, we should do it, we should do it. When I asked him a question, the result of the answer was that the gangs just left town. It’s like, “Cool. So where are they going to go when the gang patches are banned over all of New Zealand?” That is not a solution.

We’ve heard from both Ministers—the Minister of Justice, and we’ve heard reference from the Minister of Police, as he’s referenced this in media and in other sort of fora that this is all about an effective deterrent—that it’s all about putting gang members on notice; it’s all about telling gang members, “Just don’t be in gangs any more if you don’t like this piece of legislation.” If that’s not the most inane, ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is. I’m not saying there’s not value in signalling to the public. I’m not saying there’s no value in having expectations and saying, “Here’s a signal for the direction that we’re going.” But you’ve got to back that up at some point with some actual legislation and some actual direction.

Mr Meager referred to the fact that this was not the only thing that was going to happen in the fight to eradicate gangs, but it was a step in the right direction. Well, it’s not much of a step. The purpose it is serving—the only purpose it is serving—is to signal to people who are too busy working two jobs and don’t pay any attention to what goes on in this House that the National Party and the National Government are somehow tough on crime and tough on gangs because they’re going to police people’s uniforms. It’s ridiculous. I am livid at the fact that we’re having to go through this process in such a sloppy way with these last-minute amendments, but yet here we have it. I do not commend this bill to the House.

The Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill are only part of a suite of legislation that is meant to restore law and order in New Zealand. The situation with law and order in New Zealand, a majority of reasonable people living throughout New Zealand would agree, is a situation that has slipped down to very difficult, scary, and uncomfortable levels. The Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill, therefore, attack one specific portion of law and order, and seek to provide police with the tools to deal with gangs, to disrupt and crack down on gang activities and gang crime, to reduce gang numbers—which have grown tremendously over the past five years—and to stop gangs from gathering and associating and maintaining a threateningly high profile, which spreads fear and discomfort and anxiety in local communities. I commend this legislation to the House.

Thank you very much. That was a short speech, wasn’t it? We are pretty loud and clear on the fact that Labour does not support this bill for a number of reasons, but I think it’s appropriate here at the third reading that we highlight the appalling process that this bill has gone through. As far as the public interest, the people of New Zealand, also the media who have been quite interested in finding out answers here—they’re really interested to understand at what point in time and what was it that caused Paul Goldsmith to buckle and for the Ministry of Justice to cave and to give Police what they asked for back in March.

Back in March, Police were concerned about the ability for this law to be enforced. They raised real concerns that there would be insufficient front-line capacity to enforce legislation that required police to remove patches from gang members. That was very clear in the submissions process that we heard on this bill. We had the Police Association who specifically stated that there was a risk to the trust and confidence in New Zealand Police if we made a law in this House that was then unable to be enforced by a front-line police officer because there would be insufficient numbers or capacity capability to do that work.

The Police’s advice to the Minister of Police and the Minister of Justice back in March was: “Well, if we sort of had this threat that was big enough, a really good penalty or something we can hang over them, we reckon we might get a better chance of some kind of compliance in areas where we know there’s not going to be a good show of getting compliance.” But that was ruled out. It was thought that it would be breaching the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act; it wasn’t going to be a good idea to invade somebody’s home to go in, and the penalties for having a gang patch under your bed or in your top drawer would be up to, I think, five years in prison is the maximum penalty attached to that—having a gang patch in your own home: five years. That was ruled out; it wasn’t going to happen.

Then, when the select committee had finished its work and reported the bill back, second reading, we came to the committee of the whole House stage, and lo and behold, it appeared back. We had this change without any ability for members of the New Zealand public to submit on this change, without even the ability for a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act section 7 vet to be tabled and to have that information available. It was immediately put into this bill. I’d love to know—I would just love to know—the sheer drama of it, of what happened. What made “Goldie” buckle? We just want to know. It would be interesting to think, you know, was he threatened? Was he worried? Did he get a report from somewhere? What made him change his mind? It would be fascinating to know what went on there, because he hasn’t really given much away at all.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, as a longtime friend and colleague of Mr Goldsmith, I’d like to draw your attention to Speakers’ rulings that say it’s unparliamentary to imply that a member’s made a decision due to fear or a lack of courage. That’s simply unparliamentary.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for the point of order, but I know some of these questions were asked particularly this morning during the committee of the whole House stage. What I also will note is that it is actually unparliamentary to call somebody by a nickname rather than by their full name. I do note for Minister Seymour’s perspective that those questions did come up this morning.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In terms of this process, we’d already had this last-minute introduction at the committee of the whole House stage, which was pretty unusual in terms of good lawmaking or parliamentary process.

But it gets worse, ladies and gentlemen—it gets worse—because when we’d done the committee of the whole House stage and it’d been voted on, it got hauled back again this morning. We haul the bill back again before the House because we find that, if a gang member is driving their car and they display a patch—I’m assuming not while driving, because that would be really dangerous, but somehow they display it on the back of the car—that, then, was potentially not covered by the legislation, the way it was drafted. [Issue with Chamber clock] I get to go on all night, is that right? We clarified this morning that it doesn’t apply to yachts, and it’s good that the Government were clear on that—oh, no, it does apply to yachts; it applies to yachts as well. If you had a Mongrel Mob member who had a really big yacht with a sail on it, if they put Black Power, Mongrel Mob, Head Hunters, Comancheros, you can’t do that on a sail; definitely out. The change we saw this morning was on no display of a patch in a vehicle. That’s been tidied up as well.

I do wonder what else has been missed out, because if they’ve just found out this at the 13th hour and jammed it in at the end, are there other things that we will find out about this bill and how its operational, that the way it’s actually going to be implemented will have significant problems for police to be able to enforce? That is our main problem with this bill. It is one of these ideas that sounds really strong on the campaign trail but the devil is going to be in the detail of how New Zealand Police enforce this legislation. That is evidenced in the scrambling we’ve seen from the Government to try and fix the holes that are starting to show in this bill now, and it has been a real shambles.

I would like to spend the remainder of my speech in talking about the fact that this bill is largely cosmetic—is largely cosmetic. When you have a bill that is focused upon external things such as a gang patch, it begs the question: what is happening beneath the surface? What are the real drivers and causes of organised crime and gang membership in New Zealand? That’s where this bill fails to even get near to those questions. What is sad, I find, is that we have learnt from the royal commission inquiry into State care that one of the main causes of young people ending up in situations where they join a gang is because they grow up in homes where they’re subjected to unacceptable ongoing levels of family violence, and sometimes sexual abuse, as well; that we have young people who have violence normalised as part of their daily lives, and young people who don’t have hope when they’re thinking about what their future here in New Zealand holds for them.

One of the main services that locate those young people and provide those families with support and assistance is Oranga Tamariki. They go into those homes and they provide counselling services; they provide advice; they support mums and dads and aunties and uncles to have better parenting skills, to assist them to bring up their children in their own homes and to help them have more opportunities in life. What we have in this Government is a Minister responsible for those areas who has said on record that she will only fund those services once those children are in State care—“Nothing more, nothing less”. If those members opposite who have gone quiet now would like the real reason for what grows gang members in New Zealand, the real reason for what grows gang members in New Zealand is the fact that there is a lack now which will embed these issues further into New Zealand society—a lack of support for whānau who are struggling.

What concerns me even more, in terms of addressing the root causes of gangs, organised crime, and growing gang membership in New Zealand, is the fact that we now have a police service who will be more focused on taking these gang patches off people than raising the flag when young people and their families are in situations of family violence, because there’s now only a high threshold when there’s real risk to life that, if someone calls 111 after 5 o’clock at night, they’re going to get any help in New Zealand.

We had a plan just for mental health, not family violence, that was going to take five years to have the workforce in place. Well, that’s happened right now; the plug’s been pulled already. We know there are families out there right now with family violence situations who are asking for help who are not getting that help. That is really concerning for the next generation of young people and the opportunities that lie before them, because the one thing we know about family violence is what stops reporting is when someone has reached out for help previously and not received that help. That is the main reason why 20 percent or less of family violence currently gets reported in New Zealand. This Government has made decisions and funding cuts that will make that 20 percent reporting rate even lower in New Zealand.

If this Government hopes to fix or resolve or remedy the problem of organised crime in New Zealand by driving down reporting for family violence and cutting the services to young people who require assistance and help in their family situations, then what they’ve, effectively, done is prove that this bill is actually consigning another generation of young people with less hope and far more chance of joining gangs. That is sad. That is sad, because this is a Government focused on the cosmetic. They want to look good on the telly for two seconds but they couldn’t care less about what happens in the suburbs of New Zealand that they don’t have to deal with or front up about because they don’t want to know about the ugliness in the shadows of our community; they are far more interested in being able to point to a gang patch and say they took it.

Madam Speaker, this evening we’ve been having a philosophical conversation about the real drivers of what leads people to gang membership, and all of these conversations are very interesting and very true, to a great extent, but unfortunately, my neighbours in Takanini don’t have the luxury of sitting around having a philosophical debate about what leads people to join gangs when they’re being intimidated by the brazen, antisocial, and anti-lawful behaviour taking place in our patch. Six years of philosophical conversations, what did it lead to? It led to increase in violent crime by 33 percent; 51 percent increase in gang members over the last five years. This is about helping our neighbours in our patches feel safe. We commend this bill to the House.

I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Education and Training Amendment Bill.