Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee on the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill. Members, we now come to Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 6, “Preliminary provisions”, and schedules 1 and 2. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Given that Part 1 includes the Purpose clause, I thought it was probably the apposite time to invite the Minister to speak to that, because, in the second reading debate, I pointed out the Chief Science Advisor’s advice that a crackdown, tough-on-gangs - approach has a real risk of increasing gang membership and increasing gang-related crime and increasing harm to those around gang members. I note, in the purpose clause, in clause 3, that the purpose is, by the tools used in the Act, “to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and cause fear, intimidation, and disruption to the public”. We agreed. I want to be clear that we want to reduce those things. It doesn’t actually talk about reducing the number of gang members, reducing the harm that’s caused in the families and closer communities around the gangs, and the general reduction in the number of gang members. There’s a real risk that this bill will, in fact, increase all of those things, including gang numbers. Now, the Minister in the chair will be aware I’ve got a number of Amendment Papers and various things to speak to, so I will follow the kaupapa of the House and just keep my contribution short so that the Minister can respond.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, this is just the first contribution for this bill. The member opposite, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, asked what the purpose or the point of the bill is, and I can tell him clearly, the purpose of the bill is to give police extra tools with which to deal with gangs in our community and the harm that they cause. We have seen, over the past six years or so, a significant increase in gang membership in New Zealand—around 50 percent—so that requires a different response. It’s been compounded by—we’ve also seen at the same time an increase in serious violent crime, we’ve seen an increase in gun crime, and an increase in gang visibility across our communities. So when things change—and then we’ve also, of course, in the broader context, seen many very dangerous gang members come to New Zealand from Australia under the 501 process.

All of those things require a different response or an extended response. So the purpose of this bill is to give the police, as I said, extra tools to deal with this growing difficulty. I suppose in the legislation we could have gone on at great length about the problems that gangs cause in our community, but the broader context of all of this is our broader commitment to restore law and order in this country. In contrast to the previous administration, which prioritised reducing the prison population, irrespective of what was going on in the community, our focus is to reduce the number of victims of crime, because that’s what the justice system should be all about: reducing the number of victims of crime. One way in which we can do that is to deal more effectively with the negative role that gangs play in our community. Then the logic flows to this legislation, which is about giving the police extra tools—so that’s by way of introduction and by way of the purpose of the legislation.

Kia ora, Minister. My question is around clause 3, which sets out the purpose of this bill and outlines the three key areas around prohibiting gang insignia, being able to issue dispersal notices, and around the non-consorting orders. I was interested to understand why improving public safety was not a purpose of this bill. Is it because the bill will impair public safety rather than improve it?

I want to refer to page 30 of the regulatory impact statement that looks at the different options that were considered in order to achieve the purposes of this bill. I wanted to note that the only area that improves the status quo that we had prior to this bill is around public confidence. There’s been a lot of commentary in this Chamber about how this bill is not founded in evidence and is for the purposes of political expediency and getting votes, as opposed to actually cracking down on gang membership, as is set out in clause 3.

If we look here on page 30 of the regulatory impact statement, it says, “Reducing gang memberships”, and both options two and three are likely to be much worse than the status quo in terms of reducing gang membership. We know, as Duncan Webb referred to, in the minimising gang harm report that the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor prepared in the previous Government, they outlined clearly that the number one way to reduce gang membership is actually to address the drivers of gang membership, which are poverty and a lack of opportunity for people living in these communities.

Secondly, if you look back at page 30, it says, “Reducing rates of offending”. Again, options two and three make things much worse than the status quo—again, on compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and human rights, much worse than the status quo. The regulatory impact statement shows that this bill makes things worse, so how does the Minister explain the lack of evidence underpinning this bill, and in particular around the purposes set out within the bill?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m a little disappointed in the Minister of Justice’s original answer, which, essentially, just repeated what I can find on his Facebook page. But let’s move on, because I do want to make clear that this bill is quite extraordinary and the Attorney-General’s report makes it clear that it restricts some freedoms. The Minister is here and no doubt will make his case that these are appropriate restrictions—and I look forward to it—but underpinning it is, you know, every little building block of it.

One of the things which I will expand on further when we come to the appropriate part is the suggestion of electronic service of notices. But in terms of the part that we’re on, that’s triggered by what an electronic address is. In the definition there, it talks about electronic address, including an email address. Now, I’m a wee bit concerned about that, because does that mean that it could also include a text message, a Facebook message, a WhatsApp message? Or should that really say, “electronic address means an email address”? We have varying degrees of formality, and my view is that when you’re going to infringe someone’s human rights, justified or otherwise, you should be serving a document on them. That’s the most formal and most signal way you can do that.

Further down the chain, but not too much further, is a formal notification by an email, perhaps with an attached document. But well down the chain is a WhatsApp message saying, “Hey bro, you can’t associate with these other people for seven days. This is a dispersal notice from your local constable.” So I wonder if the Minister—and I am prefacing a discussion that will go further, but “electronic service”: does that mean by email or does it mean by any electronic means?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a number of questions about Part 1 of this bill, but really I’m quite interested to understand—and Dr Webb has touched on it—the part where you’re providing notification. So in terms of the purpose of the Act, listed in clause 3 is “(b) providing for the issue of dispersal notices to stop gang members from gathering in public places:” This is the part that the committee really struggled with, to try and understand how the practicalities of this bill were going to play out.

Let’s say it’s Timaru and there are 10 gang members in the main street and they’re intimidating some local people and a police officer has gone up to them and required them to remove their patches and disperse. Correct me if I’m wrong—but I think this is right—so when the officer is issuing a dispersal notice to that group of gang members, to issue the notice he will ask them first for a service address, which would be an email. And if they’re unable to provide that email, then the officer will offer for them to accompany him or her to the station to print off the notice in order for it to be served.

The issue here was that the penalty for breaching that dispersal notice would be five years in prison. The committee really struggled to find another example, even in similar jurisdictions, where something that’s potentially not been even served—if those two things don’t work and it’s just verbal—is then followed by a penalty of a five-year period of imprisonment. How is that going to work?

The other point that I’d really like the Minister’s view on is in and around the police ability to know that the same person has breached it. I assume they’re probably going to take a photo or a video. But what if there’s a situation where those eight members down the main street of Timaru have been told to remove their patches and disperse, and have been issued with a dispersal notice, whether it’s via their Yahoo email address or coming to the station, but then the next day a couple of them are back again? So they’ve breached it. So my question is: how do we know—and I’m sure this will be tested in the courts in time—that, in fact, that same person is the person who is back and who has breached it? And what’s the evidence, or how will the police demonstrate that it is in fact a breach when they return to that point?

I understand that they’re not only not allowed to come back to that point for seven days—I think that’s the way the dispersal notice works—but that they’re also not allowed to associate with each other. So what happens if they go to someone’s flat for dinner? Is that out too? I’m just wondering how that’s going to be practically worked through to make sure that it’s a breach of the dispersal order when they’re in front of the court for a five-year prison term. How is the prosecution able to demonstrate that it was, in fact, that particular person who breached it? And similarly, if they do go round to each other’s house for a cup of tea or to play PlayStation, how will police be policing the practicalities of those gang members or associates or prospects—I understand it applies to them as well—who may go around to each other’s houses in that seven-day period?

I think it’s important that the public know these answers, because, with this legislation, what’s actually being created is an expectation within New Zealanders that if anyone sees someone walking around with a gang patch on, then a police officer will make them take it off. And so there will be an expectation that with any gang member walking around, people will be calling the police saying, “I just saw a gang member. Come and get him—or her.” Also, if there is one police officer and a group of gang members, members of the public will be looking towards that police officer to intervene and remove the gang patches from them.

I’m also interested to know if the Minister has any kind of public awareness campaign in mind to inform the people of New Zealand as to how this particular law will be enforced, when they can expect police officers to be enforcing it, and in order to manage their expectations about the type of law enforcement that is practically able to be exercised, particularly given some parts of New Zealand have more police officers than others.

The member has gone into a great deal of detail in relation to the detail of how the dispersal notice regime will work, which is absolutely appropriate for discussion during the debate on Part 3, which will be coming up. In terms of the preamble and the preliminary considerations in Part 1, the purpose of all this is to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and to cause fear, intimidation, and disruption to the public by providing the issue of dispersal notices.

The purpose of these notices, as outlined at the start, is to provide the police with an extra tool to be able to issue these dispersal notices—maybe by email; more likely in person with a piece of paper and issuing that notice. That’s the purpose of it. The purpose is to stop situations such as we saw, or to provide the police with tools to use at their discretion in different circumstances, to deal with situations such as when gangs take over an entire township, in a huge bike cavalcade, and remove the ability of law-abiding citizens to go around their normal business without fear and intimidation.

That’s me—thank you, sir. I just want to turn again to the definitions clause. As I’m sure the Minister probably is aware, we had a good discussion in committee about what gang insignia was. Now, I’ll be perfectly honest, I think there’s real vagueness problems around what an insignia is, but I’m not going to actually talk about that because I don’t think there’s much likelihood of progress there. But I do want to talk about the fact that if we get something that’s well-recognised as a gang insignia—the patch or the symbol that is the patch—and put it on something else, that something else becomes the insignia as well, because that’s the definition of gang insignia in clause 4(b).

Now, it might seem trivial that the jacket that the patch is sown on to is the gang insignia. It’s important because of the right, possibly duty, to confiscate gang insignia. We’re probably not too concerned—although a nice leather jacket is several hundred dollars’ worth that’s going to be confiscated. But if that gang insignia is a sticker put on the family car, then the entire car is liable or expected to be confiscated and destroyed. Now, I’m familiar with Crown confiscations, and there is a question about reasonableness and proportionality. We can come and discuss that later, but I’m wondering whether, in terms of the definition, in fact, when it says whatever it’s affixed to, for example clothing or a vehicle, the Minister had contemplated, when including a vehicle, quite what that meant, particularly when the thing confiscated—and this is well established—doesn’t have to belong to the wrongdoer.

We see that in fisheries cases all the time where your mate’s boat gets confiscated for having too much pāua on. So that’s actually quite a significant thing if one family member owns the car, some idiot youngster puts a mob sticker on it, and it gets confiscated. I wonder if the Minister could speak to the issue of what a gang insignia is and whether, in fact, it’s appropriate that it includes everything that the insignia itself is affixed to.

Well, it’s not for me as Minister to offer legal advice, but my guess is if somebody had a car with a sticker affixed to it and were at risk of having the car forfeited, they would probably peel the sticker off and give it to the constable, would be my guess.

I wanted to ask some questions that sort of go back to clause 3 of the bill, around the purpose of this piece of legislation, to ask the Minister of Justice what difference it is making to existing pieces of legislation that already, in some ways, prohibit some of the activities set out within clause 3. An example of that is we have had the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Act since 2013, which prohibits the display of gang insignia, and we also have the Summary Offences Act 1981, where gang activities that cause issues in public are already an offence, including disorderly or offensive behaviour and associating with those convicted of theft, violence, or drug-related offending. So, if some of the aspects of this bill are already covered within legislation, my question is: what is this adding to the tools that are already in place?

I would ask the Minister to reflect on the usefulness of the existing legislation as well, given that, I believe, 17 fines have been issued under existing insignia prohibition law and there hasn’t been a reduction in patches, nor has there been a reduction in gang membership either while that piece of legislation has been in existence. I also wanted to see if the Minister might reflect on the ability to actually implement this bill, particularly in jurisdictions where the number of gang members far outweighs the number of police officers in those jurisdictions. Maybe the Minister might want to talk a little bit more about the national gang unit that he hopes to put in place to implement these polices. My read of things is that gang-busting policies have been completely ineffective, have not reduced the visual presence of patches within any communities, that the fines have not been handed out, and that the police already have tools to use where there are gang patches present.

I also wondered whether the Minister might reflect on the perverse outcomes that come about through banning gang insignia, such as people tattooing their patches on their skin and what the answer is there, because, obviously, they can’t cover it up with make-up as the Government has suggested. So I would ask the Minister to reflect on the actual ability to implement this policy and what this brings in addition to existing legislation which has already been designed to address the purposes of this bill, as set out in clause 3, which clearly isn’t having an impact, because patches are still in our communities and we still see them. Those are my questions.

Thank you for the member Tamatha Paul’s questions, and I suppose I’d make the obvious point that it is building on earlier legislation in terms of gang patches, where a previous member’s bill banned those patches from schools and hospitals and public buildings. The widespread response we’ve had on that is that it has been very successful. We don’t have a huge number of people going into schools with gang patches. So the purpose of this legislation is to build on that and to extend that to all public places, recognising that the public has had a gutsful of the intimidation that comes with gangs in our community.

In terms of the risk of that leading to more tattooing of gang insignia, while the Government did not include in this bill reference to tattoos being displayed in public, that has certainly been adopted in some Australian states, particularly Western Australia, where that has indeed led to the application of make-up over the patches if they haven’t been able to be covered with clothing. But that is not a step that’s taken in this legislation.

Thank you very much. Look, I’d just like to commend the Minister, too, on the regulatory impact statement. It’s got some really good evidence there, and some of the answers that we’ve been actually seeking over the course of the introduction of this bill and some of the things are really helpful.

One of the questions that I’ve consistently been asking—particularly the Minister of Police—was: how will we know that these measures actually will stop people wanting to be in a gang and how will that work effectively? And the only evidence I was able to ascertain or to gain from him was that he went on a trip to Australia and he met with his counterpart, I think, over in New South Wales. He said that, that day he met with him, on the front page of the paper was an article that showed that the lead member of the Rebels had, in fact, left the gang purely because these new laws had made his life so hard that he couldn’t take it anymore and he was leaving the gang. And when we went back to find that article, that was the lead story in the paper, what that article actually described was a lot of internal tensions within the Rebels, particularly them killing each other quite a bit, and that was the key driving factor for that lead gang member to leave the gang, not the non-consorting laws that had been introduced.

I think it’s really good that we’ve got some analysis here on the evidence of what did happen in Australia and whether it’s worked or not. And I think the Australian examples really give us some insights as to how this law might play out in New Zealand. The New South Wales Ombudsman actually recommended to narrow the scope of the existing non-consorting laws so that they could only really target that serious and organised crime. And they noted that this would likely reduce inappropriate or unnecessary use of laws—essentially wasting police time—and crack down on the stuff that really works. And so did Queensland—they agreed with this as well. In fact, the Queensland Organised Crime Commission of Inquiry found that its states’ focus on gangs had really resulted in a lack of visibility in other areas of organised criminal activity. And that’s been one of our key concerns too—that the manufacturer and distribution of methamphetamine is, in fact, far more harmful than seeing a gang patch. And we want to make sure that this Government is not only “laser focused” on restoring law and order but also on crippling the criminal networks that utilise drugs, money laundering, and general criminal purposes to wreak havoc in our communities.

What they noted in the Queensland report was that gang members accounted for less than 1 percent of overall offending in Queensland, and that included the rate of charges for drug offending. And that’s pretty much comparable to what we see in New Zealand, and that’s noted in paragraph 24 as well. So I guess what I’m seeking from the Minister is: will he be able to give a level of reassurance to New Zealanders that we won’t be just looking tough and won’t be just emailing gang members to go away and take their patches off but also that resources in police, which we know are stretched, will also be focusing on the drivers of crime, which is methamphetamine, which is those serious violent offences that happen in homes and see young people growing up where family and sexual violence can be normalised?

These are the drivers of crime, and it is a valid concern on this side of the House that we will end up like Australian states. And they’ve noted that these non-consorting orders merely displaced the problem, the balloon effect—you squeeze it, and it just pops out in another place. Queensland’s statistics indicated it did have a slight reduction in membership in the two years following the introduction of the two 2013 law. But, largely, it seemed they all moved over the border into other states where they didn’t have those laws. New Zealand doesn’t have borders, so what’s going to happen here? It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

It will be also interesting to see how it plays out—and the Minister may want to comment on this—particularly in those parts of New Zealand that are carrying vacancies now of police officers, where we have one or two police stations with that number of police officers, and how they will be able to still do their job and also enforce this law in a way that New Zealanders have confidence in our police service that they’re able to enforce this law. I think that’s a risk the Minister may want to speak to. If we have a law that is unable to be enforced in some parts of New Zealand, does that potentially undermine not only the credibility of our police service but also our very legal structure?

Thank you, Mr Chair. We’ve had a couple of questions now which I think are best characterised by pointing out some of the potential problems, but the lack of robust kind of oomph behind some of the policy decisions that have been made here, when we think about what the purpose is and when we’re thinking about it.

I’ll give the Minister of Justice maybe a chance to—before he gets to his feet and answers the specifics around particularly the last two questions—go back a step, perhaps, and think about specific examples. Because whilst there’s been some policy questions asked in so far as whether things will work and whether there’s workability, I just noted something that he had said earlier on about the dispersal notices. It kind of piqued my interest because it was a specific example about workability in so far as suggesting that more likely than not, I think the Minister said, a piece of paper would be issued to convey that dispersal notification. Yet, if I recall correctly, during this process, and certainly during the Justice Committee process, there seemed to be—and when we look through the regulatory impact statement as well—plenty of advice to show that that’s largely an unrealistic expectation that police were going to be able to issue a piece of paper on the side of the road at the event when they witnessed gang members with their gang patches in groups of three or more.

If that’s not entirely accurate as a valid means by which to enact the dispersal process, then can the Minister kind of elucidate a little bit further perhaps on other ways in which he understands that those provisions would be enacted? Because I think it’s quite critical when we think about the purpose of the Act, in so far as being able to reduce the gang’s ability to operate and to cause fear and intimidation. If, at the first hurdle, when it comes to (a) identifying that this has happened, (b) issuing some sort of dispersal notice—and for the Minister to rely potentially on a mechanism to do that, that we certainly received plenty of information about the unworkability of that, just creates a little bit of uneasiness as we’re listening here today in this process, in this committee of the whole House, as to whether that would work or not. Sitting here—whilst I’ve listened to several questions—I don’t feel very much more informed about the practicalities of that. I think listening to not only just the questions but actually some of the answers has raised some more questions than answers.

Before we move on, I’d like a little bit of assurance or reassurance, if the Minister can, about the practical implications about how this is workable, particularly given that in the first instance that first concrete example he gave seems to be contrary to all the information that we’ve received to date. So I’m hoping he can help us out there.

Thank you very much for those questions. I’m very happy to go through the details of all that in Part 3, which is the appropriate time to do that. I also just wanted to correct a statement made by the previous speaker, Hon Ginny Andersen, around Mr Mitchell’s visit to Australia. He is obviously tuning into radio and listening to this debate carefully—he’s probably out there in the public, driving around talking to people. But he heard it and he wanted to make the point that he went to Western Australia, not to New South Wales—Western Australia. So I just want to pass on my regards to Minister Mitchell and the Police, of which he is the Minister. They’re going to be receiving extra tools through this legislation.

Now, we’ve had some reference by other members to, well, is this ban on patches going to solve every problem that we face in the criminal sector and bring about a massive reduction in gang membership and public safety? No individual thing will achieve such a thing. It’s about a number of options that police and the justice system have to deal with what is a longstanding and difficult problem. So the purpose of this legislation is to build on the many pieces of legislation that we already have in the Crimes Act and many other pieces of legislation which are designed to keep us safe as New Zealanders and to enable the police to do their job to keep us safe. This bill is about bringing four extra tools to police’s toolkit in order to deal with the gangs. So it’s important to see that context.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s not usual to let the committee know that someone’s not here, but it’s nice to know that the Minister of Police is tucked up with his National-branded pyjamas and his cup of cocoa. I think you’re still allowed to wear the National Party logo, at least at home in front of the fire.

My question relates to the definition of “named person”. “Named person” is quite important, because a named person is the person with whom you’re not allowed to associate when there’s a dispersal notice in place. We know there’s got to be at least three of them—this is the group that is being dispersed. It strikes me that the definition of “named person” has a gap in it that leads to an anomaly. The anomaly it leads to is that if the gang was Andersen, Webb, and Goldsmith—strange that that may seem—and that two were named but one wasn’t, then you get a problem that one person can associate with the others, but they can’t associate with them. So it’s really important that all of the people who are named in the dispersal notice served on one person also have a dispersal notice served on them. Otherwise, you get this strange situation where I can associate with you, but you can’t associate with me.

My Amendment Paper, which has an A on it—I’m not sure that’s a formal A, but it’s there on the Table—deals with clause 4 and the definition of “named person”. It suggests that an additional clause (c) should be there so that every named person also has been served with a dispersal notice in respect of the gathering to which the dispersal notice relates, so that whatever the group—if there are 30 people, you don’t have to give them all dispersal notices, but everyone that you don’t want to associate must be served with a dispersal notice, so you can’t have a named person who hasn’t been served with a dispersal notice. Otherwise, that person could nip round and visit their mate, not knowing, and actually not breaking the law, being allowed to visit their mate, but their mate’s not allowed to be visited by them. That can’t be right. That’s a real gap in the law.

Look, every single Amendment Paper I’ve got in there is a serious Amendment Paper that seeks to address a gap. If we want to make sure that people don’t associate with each other, then you’ve got to have it working both ways. You can’t have person A allowed to associate with person B, but person B not allowed to associate with person A. So that’s the first Amendment Paper that I’ll speak to. I do have another Amendment Paper on this part, but I won’t clutter the Minister’s busy mind.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d just like to, in terms of the purpose of the bill, which is to deter people who were wanting to be in a gang—which we agree with that; we don’t want people to be in gangs. We’re just questioning whether the mechanisms or the actions that this legislation takes necessarily will achieve that. So we’re quite interested to hear a bit back from the Minister.

Going back to those examples we gave—that it had happened in Queensland and also in New South Wales—what the report from the ombudsmen in New South Wales and Queensland found is it drove criminal activity underground. It was not as visible—you didn’t see it as much in the streets—but what happened was the same level of, or potentially even greater, criminal activity happened in a more covert way. You might not see it as much, but it was still going on. So I’m interested to know: does the Minister have any proposal, any methodology, in which he plans to monitor how this legislation works? Would it be through the waste-water testing of methamphetamine that we’re able to receive? Would it be like the number of convictions? I’m not sure that would really measure it, potentially, because it’s all driven underground, so how do you measure that which you can’t see? So I’m interested to know what thoughts have gone in place.

One of the difficulties is that there’s been a really interesting programme that’s gone on for a while that’s been continued to be funded by this Government, which is the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities, which provides, I guess, pro-social opportunities for young people who might get into a gang to not make that decision and to give them a better pathway. So one of the concerns that’s raised in the regulatory impact statement is that this strategy of policing membership could potentially reinforce anti-social attitudes and mistrust, making it harder for great programmes which have got quite a bit of money invested in them, such as the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities, to be able to reach populations with social and economic interventions that would help that reoffending. It lists out some quite good risks. It actually risks that it may actually make it more difficult for people to exit gangs for those who are willing to disengage or desist from crime. It may also undermine those relationships that that programme, Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities—undermine trusted relationships within the community that have enabled whānau who have gang members in them to understand what services and opportunities are available to them and to be able to be in a space where they make a decision to leave the gang.

I hark back again to the comments that Mr Mitchell made that he wants to make life so uncomfortable that people just want to leave the gang. The mechanisms you’re utilising are dispersal notices and removing gang patches, but I haven’t heard much discussion about the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities programme, which your Government has continued to fund. Have you analysed the impact of these legislative changes on that long-term programme to prevent the next generation of people joining a gang? Also, it notes that these legal changes that we’re discussing today potentially undercut efforts to cultivate pro-social activity within gang communities. So making the environment right that people might actually want to leave the gang, for those groups who have moved towards adopting such behaviours and are starting to make those changes.

The regulatory impact statement also says that it makes it harder—this is really important—for whānau experiencing violence, particularly family violence, to seek help. We know that our statistics—I’ve done work on this—are that harm to children and women in gang families is far higher. It’s huge numbers of women and young people who are victims, repeatedly, of quite severe family violence.

I’m wanting to hear a response from the Minister as to whether he’s fully comprehended the impact of this legislation on long-term programmes that have been in place to create pro-social environments where young people and communities can step away from organised crime, and how he thinks that his idea of just taking off a patch and giving them an email to disperse is actually more long-term beneficial for New Zealand safety than programmes that actually give young people and families positive and real opportunities to step away from what can be quite a harmful and dangerous lifestyle.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the previous speaker, the Hon Ginny Andersen, for her observations. If, indeed, I was standing here as the Minister of Justice and saying that all we need to do to deal with gangs is pass this legislation, then she would be right. But, of course, that is not what I am saying.

Nobody would for a moment suggest that a Government doesn’t also have to deal with the long-term drivers behind the social and economic dysfunction that contributes to multigenerational issues such as the development of gangs, and that’s why the Government has, for example, invested more in the Budget on enabling rehabilitation programmes for remand prisoners. It’s why we’re very much focused on dealing with truancy and poor performance in school, so to deal with that. That’s why we’re dealing with our emergency accommodation housing situation. So there’s a broad range of social issues that we absolutely agree on. Of course, better and more effective dealing with addictions and alcoholism—all those issues are very much part of the broader response to gangs and their impact on society.

We certainly understand that broader context. Where we sometimes differ—and I don’t want to misinterpret what her party is saying, but it’s one thing to understand the context, but no society can function if people aren’t accountable for the decisions that they make today whether or not to commit a crime or intimidate people or engage in drug dealing or a whole host of things that have been associated with many gangs in the past. So accountability is part of it. Increasing the chance of being caught and held to account has to be part of the response.

This legislation is providing some extra tools to help the police deal with gangs and their public presence and their intimidation. But it builds on a large number of existing laws: firearm laws and a whole bunch of other legislation that this Government is passing. And it comes at the same time along with that much broader effort made across many Governments to deal with the longstanding social issues that are part of it. So it’s not either/or, and there is no suggestion that one piece of legislation will solve the problem by itself. It has to be part of a holistic plan across all Government.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to take my first call on the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill. I’m just going to start off by talking a little bit about the context and where I’m coming from, because I think that’s really important, and then I’m going to ask questions about the purpose of the bill and think through some potentially worst-case scenarios. I think that that’s part of our job as democratic legislators—to think through the potentially worst things that could happen in the exercise of State power.

A little bit about the background is that my grandfather, who I was actually named after, was a police officer in the Philippines, and I’m sure we can all agree that the policing environment in countries that are developing are perhaps a little bit more challenging than the contexts that we face in developed countries. My mother named me after my grandfather, but he was actually killed before I was even born, so I was named as a kind of tribute to him. He was killed by a gang. He was standing up; he was a straight man in a bent force, as my family used to describe him. So he was a non-corrupt officer in an institution that was rife with corruption.

I think that’s important to contextualise, because quite often in these debates, which do get heated—and I acknowledge your leadership, Minister, and that you haven’t engaged in this rhetoric so far—the Greens tend to be painted with people saying that we’re pro-crime or pro-gang, or whatever. But we do agree with—I think all the political parties here have the same kind of desire that people shouldn’t be intimidated and that people shouldn’t be held to fear, and in an ideal world, people wouldn’t be joining gangs. But I think we do differ on our method of how to get there, and I think that’s important to consider in the context of the purpose of this, because we can exercise a lot of State power to try and enforce anti-gang legislation.

We can create things and structures, but there are always trade-offs. There are trade-offs in terms of resources to enforce and there are trade-offs in terms of what it might do to the kind of democratic deficit. And that’s been acknowledged to some extent by the report of the Attorney-General, where she stated that “I have considered the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill … for consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act … I conclude the proposed prohibition on the display of gang insignia in public places is inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the Bill of Rights Act. Further, I conclude that the proposed power to issue dispersal notices is inconsistent with the right to peaceful assembly in the Bill of Rights Act.”

I think that’s something that’s really important to consider, because if we go to the purpose section, at clause 3(a) and (b), clause 3(a) is “prohibiting the display of gang insignia in public places:” and clause 3(b) is “providing for the issue of dispersal notices to stop gang members from gathering in public places:”, and if we turn to the definition section, clause 4 states that “ ‘gang member’ includes the following: (a) an individual who is a prospective member or nominee: (b) an individual who demonstrates affiliation to a gang by displaying the gang’s insignia: (c) an individual who is involved in the affairs of a gang for the likely purpose of participating in a criminal activity”. I do think that there are some potentially problematic things that could come out of this because “public places” could include, for example, a polling booth, and “gang members” could include people who are wanting to exercise their democratic right.

So, again, it is our duty as legislators to think what the worst-case scenarios might be and to consider what are the sorts of powers that we’re giving Governments to make in dispersal laws. I have full confidence and faith that none of the current members of this current House are in any way tyrannical or autocratic, and I don’t suggest that anyone here would move to use it, but it does create a precedent whereby some future administration which might have ill intent could use clause 3(b) to misclassify people as gang members and to prohibit them from exercising their democratic rights. So I do think we need to be really careful about the safeguards we build into this kind of legislation. As I said earlier, it’s really important that we consider that even though we’re all wanting to achieve a place where—oh, I’ve run out of time. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d just like to pick up on the point in and around the purpose of this to make sure that we don’t want people in gangs. And a big part of that is concerning, particularly in relation to parts of rural New Zealand, and this has been used quite often by the Government. We don’t want to return to situations where gangs are able to take over our streets and take control of communities and stop law-abiding New Zealanders from getting to do their daily work, and we agree on that. But part of that is having the police resource to be able to do that and to be able to make sure—so we do know that Police received about $107 million less in the last Budget than they did the one before that. And so, in terms of some of those rural police stations that were shut down under the last National Government, there’s actually information I’ve received that there will be more closing down.

We know we’ve heard that there are potentially more rural police stations, over the next few months, that are going to close as a result of lack of resourcing. I’ve been provided with the names of those stations, but I’m not going to use them right now until we can find out a little bit more about that. Maybe the Minister can enlighten us as to whether there’s been a Cabinet paper that proposes to close more rural police stations around New Zealand. The worry would be, for those stations in parts of New Zealand where we know we have high numbers of gang members, whether there will be a police presence able to, in fact, enforce this legislation. I would go so far as to say that it would be irresponsible of this Government to promise to New Zealanders that this legislation will, in fact, deliver a restoration of law and order if, with one hand, they are taking away a gang patch and, with the other hand, they are closing a police station, because that would seem to be counterintuitive to the purposes of what they promised at the election and what New Zealanders are expecting them to deliver.

Maybe the Minister can speak to that, because I do see that there are quite big parts of this legislation that appear to be cosmetic, that are good window dressings, that enable the Minister to be able to stand up like he did in the House yesterday and say that he’s putting gangs on notice and that we will no longer tolerate this kind of disruption to our communities. And that’s great. But to be able to deliver on those types of promises, you also need to resource the police service. There are some very real concerns amongst police officers that there is insufficient resourcing provided by this Government to enable them to enact the new powers that legislation, such as this, will be providing our police officers.

I would be really interested to hear from the Minister whether he has further information to enlighten us about further rural police stations in New Zealand closing, whether some of this is in relation to the $107 million less that police received under his past Budget, and whether there’s any view to providing additional funding for those parts of New Zealand that may no longer have a police station or even a police presence but do have a significant number of gang members, because it would be quite hard to put gang members on notice if there’s no cop there to do it. It would be quite hard to issue dispersal notices and remove gang patches if there’s no front-line police officer paid and resourced to be able to be there and doing that work.

I think that by introducing legislation like this and using pretty tough language in terms of how this will have an impact on law and order in New Zealand, he’s given New Zealanders a high bar of expectation about the outcome of what this bill will deliver in terms of safety in our communities. And it may be detrimental to his own reputation if there are resources locally that people have seen and expect to exist and those are disappearing at the same time as greater expectations are being put on our front-line police officers. So if the Minister has any further information that may reassure us that this talk will be followed through with resourcing and ability for enforcement to do the work, I’m sure New Zealanders would be very keen to hear that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would make the point that, of course, in the broader context that all New Zealanders will be aware of a very difficult Budget environment where—even notwithstanding all the many savings that my colleague Nicola Willis made on behalf of the Government—New Zealand will still be running a very substantial deficit of around $13 billion this year. In that context, one of the areas where the Government did choose to invest more was—alongside health—with additional resources to the police and for 500 extra police officers. So yes, we do agree that the response, in terms of restoring law and order, is about increasing the chances of being caught and held to account—is an important part of it—and ensuring that police have extra resources is part of the message. That is why we did do that.

Of course financial support is part of the issue. Also, moral support for the police is important, which is why we were so distressed yesterday with the implication or the question posed by the Greens that police are more of a menace to society than gangs, or could be regarded as such, and we didn’t think that was at all appropriate. The police do their very best to put sometimes their bodies and lives on the line to defend public safety, and they should be backed and encouraged and supported, not compared with gangs in dark alleys. So that is why we have backed up this legislation, which makes a contribution to giving the police extra tools to deal with gangs, with extra resources for the police and moral support for the work that they do.

Kia ora, tēnā koe e te Pika. I have a few reflections and bits of clarity for the Minister of Justice to consider. One is around the power of association and public perception, because whenever I hear the gangs legislation and the gangs kōrero brought up by the Government, we’re always talking about the Mongrel Mob or Black Power, which are, naturally, gangs that are associated with high Māori membership. But it doesn’t really take into account that the majority of gangs in this country are actually gangs that have no Māori association with them at all. In fact, there’s a long list—probably the longest list of gangs, or that sort of crowd, is the outlaw motorcycle groups. So when are we going to hear about them and when are we going to go after their patches, you see? The perception is the thing that I’m talking about—how this House presents its case or its ideas around getting tough on gangs to the public. I think we could do a lot better. It, unfortunately, spills out of both sides of this House.

Whenever we hear about the gangs, we always hearing about a gang tangi—wanting to disrupt a gang tangi—or worrying about the gang whānau. You know, the subtle insinuations that this is all a conversation about Māori, and Māori being the problem of gangs in this country—it really needs a little bit of balancing out, I think.

If the Minister is really keen on what the Government does in terms of how we really address the problem—because this is dropping the hammer on them, no doubt about it—if we really want to see gangs gone, then we have to address the intergenerational nature of gangs in this country, and address things like my mate Tamatha over here keeps bringing up, like poverty, lack of opportunity, economic marginalisation, and all of those things. I talked about the Māori Battalion the other night, and economic marginalisation was born, for Māori, right there, back in 1950. So how are we going to address those things? That’s what I want to know.

I appreciate all of the intricacies of the bill and all of its bits and pieces, but how do we get over the national problem, yes, but also a level of stigmatisation of te iwi Māori that shouldn’t be acceptable and we should do better. Less than 0.5 percent of the Māori population are involved in gang activity. It’s a minuscule amount. Yet anyone listening to this conversation through the media would think that half of them were in a gang. So kia kaha—kia kaha—let’s do better in that regard.

Well, I agree with many of the sentiments that the previous speaker Tākuta Ferris made. Government Ministers have been very careful not to imply at all that gang membership and gang intimidation across the country is intimately linked with Māori. Indeed, I’ve pushed back very hard against many of the assumptions in many of the papers that I’ve received, actually, from the Ministry of Justice saying that this will disproportionately affect Māori and we shouldn’t do it, or we should consider that in the context of the Treaty. The point I’ve made is that the vast majority of Māori are not involved in gangs, but it is true that Māori are more likely to be victims of crime than New Zealanders, and so, like everybody in New Zealand, Māori have a great stake in restoring law and order and dealing effectively with the scourge that is gangs in our community. Of course, not all gang members are Māori, and of course this legislation is focused on all gang members no matter what their ethnicity, so I absolutely agree with that.

I also agree that we have to deal with the broader social challenges that we face. That, indeed, is the purpose of much of the Government’s legislation and work. If you wanted to see where the evidence for that is, I point towards the Budget, which is very much focused on restoring a growth plan, dealing with the cost of living challenges that many families across this nation deal with. One of the drivers of that, of course, has been the rapid rise of the cost of living and inflation, and the Government can have a contribution to that by spending very unwisely. That’s why we’ve tightened up our spending: so as to reduce inflation, so as to reduce interest rates, so as to take pressure off households. That’s why we’re very much focused on educational achievement. That’s why we’re very much focused on a more effective housing policy.

I can go on at great length about that. There are many things that I think we can agree on as part of issues that we as a country need to address, and I’d encourage that member and his party to support some of the work that we’re doing to make progress in that area. So I very much agree with many of the sentiments expressed there.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ētehi kōrero, ki a au, e hono anō hoki ki tōku whānau, waihoki ki Te Pāti Māori.

[Thank you, Madam Chair. Indeed, greetings to all of us in the committee. I stand to give voice to some comments, to me, that are connected to my family, and also to the Māori Party.]

I have a few questions, and I’ve also had a few relevant experiences recently that I think the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill will heavily impact within my electorate and within my community, and actually within my whānau.

One of the first questions I have for the Minister of Justice is: what measures does the Minister have in place to mitigate Māori profiling? Another question is: how will the Minister ensure police discretion is used in a way that doesn’t disproportionately discriminate against Māori? And then, in clause 3 of the bill, there is “reasonable grounds”. What is the definition of “reasonable grounds”?

Some of these relevant experiences happen to me. As an MP, the bigger picture of all of this is that, actually, I think I will be probably one of the most impacted MPs from this bill, within my community of Rāhui Pōkeka. Every two weeks, I will probably get pulled over for no reason. There is absolutely no reason why young Māori are getting pulled over in the streets of our communities. We are not gang members. We have no affiliations to gang patches whatsoever. But this is the racial profiling that happens consistently within our communities.

Ever since October, when I moved to Wellington part time, I’ve never ever—me and Tamatha have similar situations. We’re both young women from the Waikato, places like Huntly and Tokoroa, and when we come to places like Wellington with our flash suits and our flash get-ups, we’re not once pulled over by a police officer for no reason. As soon as I get back on my flight tonight, I have fear or anxiety of getting pulled over for no reason—no reason. And there are so many experiences that I could share, but I don’t want to, because it’s not for this place to hear about, because it could be quite traumatic. And I’m not trying to victimise myself or profile ourselves, but these are the experiences that we face on a daily basis growing up in places like Huntly, like Tokoroa, like South Auckland.

Recently, I’ve been attending tangihanga throughout my electorate, and I want to know from the Minister: what is the process of tangihanga now with this bill? Sixty police officers to a tangihanga, throughout Hauraki-Waikato, in rohe like Hauraki, Ngāruawāhia, Whatawhata, having armed checkpoints with M4s, and then on burial day having an Eagle helicopter circling the urupā of a cemetery as karakia commences, as they lower the caskets of their loved ones. We have witnessed an enormous amount of police cars showing up at streets to marae to checkpoint at tangihanga. I would really like to seek clarity from the Minister: does this mean this bill now gives the authority to interfere in tikanga Māori, such as protocols, cultural considerations, and tangihanga? And please bear in mind that some of these tangihanga are not gang-related at all—they are not gang-related at all—some of these tangihanga that I’m talking about. I have asked these questions to the Minister of Police also and haven’t had a follow-up. So it’s not like i taka nō te rangi noa iho [it just fell out of the sky]. Consistently we have seen these events happen within our communities, through the Māori electorate seats.

Another pātai is: if gang members are a part of tangihanga, how is that going to work? And, on an even more personal note, it was only last week that one of my relatives passed away, and he was part of a gang. The police and the community worked collectively together with the whānau pani and community to have a tangihanga that worked sufficiently throughout the community. I took the time to actually look around at the tangihanga at that time and think, “How is this logistically going to work? Is every single member in this tangihanga going to get arrested? Am I going to get arrested because I’m a part of this tangihanga?” These are some of the logistical questions that we want to have answers to at a bigger scale with tangihangas happening.

Now, this happened as soon as this Government came into power. This didn’t just happen recently; this happened as soon as this Government came into power. We have had multiple hui with whānau who have actually a really good relationship with local police officers. Now, I know this may not be in the scope of the Minister of Justice’s portfolio; however I do believe that these kaupapa align. They have a very good relationship with local police; however, when tangihanga like this have been happening recently, in the few months that it has been happening, they have been told that they’re getting clear direction and indication from Wellington, from this place here. They are not wanting to interfere in tangihanga with the M4s, with helicopters, but these are police officers who are from outside of our local respected electorates coming into our town. Now, I’d also like to add, if I get the time—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): You can keep going. You’ve got the floor.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: I would also like to add that in my community, it’s where the police officers actually come to train. So in Huntly, in South Auckland, police officers are coming in big multitudes and coming to train in our communities. They have no idea what we go through. They have no idea who this community is. They just go for the biggest Māori population with the biggest crime rates, come in, mess it all up, and then go home.

I don’t want our communities to get into gangs. I completely tautoko that. I don’t want anyone to commit crimes; we’re clear about that as Te Pāti Māori. But we have to remember that gangs came from the abuse of this State. They came from this House, and we heard that last week. So I want to understand what the Minister is going to do with the questions that I have kātahi anō ka whakawhārikihia e au ki runga i te aroaro i a tātou i tēnei pō [just laid before all of us this evening] on the many different relative experiences that we face in our communities like Tokoroa, like Huntly, like South Auckland, throughout the Māori seats. Tēnā rā tātou.

I’m going to call the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, but just before I do, I just want to make a comment. I’ve heard a couple of comments in the House about select committee. Yes, we have select committees and yes, we have readings either side of those, but this is actually a committee of the whole House where not everyone in the House has had the opportunity to be at the Justice Committee. Part 1 of this bill is quite broad around the purpose and the definitions and the intentions, and so if someone has or hasn’t been at select committee at this point, there’s an opportunity to ask questions, so I just want to make that very clear.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. After that very good speech, I would perhaps bring the focus a little more narrow, because I do want to actually just talk about the definition of “gang insignia”, because it’s probably done a disservice to this legislation to call it “the gang patch ban” It’s actually much more than that, because the definition of “gang insignia” in the bill here, in clause 4, I think, “means (a) a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed to denote membership of, or an affiliation with, or support for a gang, not being a tattoo;”.

Now, I accept the kind of legislative dilemma facing the Minister wanting to cast the net wide and not allow all the small fishes through, so to speak, but there’s a real danger here that we end up banning a whole lot of things that aren’t actually part of the purpose, because the purpose, which we’ve talked about, is to stop intimidation. The things that are intimidating are those signs, insignia, where people see it in the street and think, “Crikey! That’s one of those dangerous gang members.”, whereas a lot of what would be captured here—“a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed to denote membership … or affiliation”—actually, to a person in the street, wouldn’t have that effect.

A really good example are bandanas. In some gangs, blue and red bandanas denote different street gangs. Now, they are commonly used. The very purpose for which they’re being worn is to denote affiliation with the Bloods and the Crips or whatever it might be. Don’t quote me on the exact affiliations, but that red bandana means nothing to a person simply walking down the street. They don’t look at a red bandana and think, “That’s one of those dangerous Crips or Bloods.”—maybe it’s the Bloods. The other thing is this: there’s a habit or a course of conduct in West Los Angeles of using sporting paraphernalia. So different baseball caps, in particular, signify which gang you belong to. Now, if it turns out that a Crusaders cap or beanie means you belong to a particular gang, then it falls within “gang insignia”, even though an ordinary person on a street wouldn’t necessarily look at a person and know. Who would know is a member of the gang or a member of a rival gang; that’s actually why it’s been worn—to show that tribalism.

My Amendment Paper on the Table suggests that—and it might be that it needs a bit of work, but we’ve got time to do this; I’m not sure we’ll get through all of this bill by 6 o’clock today, but I’ve suggested adding in the word “and understood”. So “gang insignia means (a) a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed and understood”. And it might need “widely understood to denote membership”, because, at the moment, a lot of those insignias aren’t widely understood. They’re still insignias. They still denote and they’re intended to denote affiliation with a gang, but they aren’t widely understood to do so and, therefore, don’t fall foul of the purpose of this bill, which is to be intimidating.

To put it in the wider context, this is a free-speech infringement. The Attorney-General’s report makes it clear that the banning of gang insignia, in this global way, is, in her view, “an unjustified limitation on the right of free expression in New Zealand.” When we come to say what it is, we should narrow it down as much as we can, as is consistent with the actual purposes of the Act. So I’d be interested in the Minister’s response. As I say, these are not trivial amendments. The bill’s come out of committee, it’s still got work to do on it, as his own Amendment Paper shows, and this would make it more workable and more consistent, in my view, with his own purpose. So I’d be interested in his response both to this Amendment Paper and I don’t think he’s responded to my earlier one on the definition of “associated persons”, so it’d be good to hear that.

I just wanted to respond to the earlier speech in relation to the impact of this legislation on predominantly Māori communities. I want to make the first point that the suggestion was that since this Government had come to power, a message from Wellington had a direct impact on police decision-making about where to put the helicopter or to turn up to particular events. I want to assure that member that of course the operational activities of the police are, by law, independent, and no Minister would ever seek to direct the police and how they go about those prosecutions and activities.

In terms of the broader question, also in relation to different communities, certainly our expectation is that this legislation will be enforced without any reference to ethnicity but focused on the purpose, which is to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and cause fear, intimidation, and disruption to the public. Non - gang members, of course, will not be directly affected by this legislation. But what we are focused on through this, as part of a much wider programme, is to reduce the number of victims of crime. Again, the communities that that member referred to often, sadly, include many victims of crime across the board. So, naturally, the police are very active in those communities, but as they should be throughout the country. So it’s certainly our intention that all legislation in this country will be prosecuted without regard to ethnicity, but on the basis of the law as it stands.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. I really want to thank you for letting me take this call tonight, particularly for those of us who you mentioned earlier have not been part of the select committee process. I’m particularly happy to be part of questioning the Minister in this case, because, as far as I’m aware, in looking at the evidence and research around the issue of gangs in this country of Aotearoa, it seems like we’ve come a really long way in terms of understanding what actually drives people to join these gangs, to stay in them, and how they leave or how it’s very, very hard to leave. We know that that is a very complex web of historic trauma, including abuse in State care, which has been so clearly spelt out today and in the past week. We know it’s poverty. We know it’s cycles of incarceration.

Now, I’m really concerned—and I’d love to hear from the Minister—about how this bill is not actually going to unravel the really positive progress that has been made over the past few years and actually addressing the intimidating behaviour and organised crime by gangs, that we don’t want to see, across the House. We’ve heard that there’s been really positive collaboration between gang leaders, between police leadership, and between Government leaders, in terms of finding meaningful solutions to address this.

I really want to get to the pragmatics of the bill. Clause 3 in the bill, which sets out the purpose, is the most glaring start of where the pragmatics are not clear. I want to pick up, firstly—and I’d love to hear from the Minister—in clause 3(b), we’re noting that it’s saying that we want to reduce the ability of gangs to operate and cause fear, intimidation, and disruption, but the methods of how and what that will actually look like on the ground are unclear. So I want to pick up firstly on subclause (b), where it says, “providing for the issue of dispersal notices to stop gang members from gathering in public places”. I’d love to hear what feedback the Minister has actually had from police about their ability to prevent gang members from gathering in public places, what do the police have to say, and how has that fed into the bill here.

I’d also love to hear what feedback he’s had from police, again, about how they might be able to implement the non-consorting orders to prevent gang members from associating or communicating with each other. Now, this leads to the subclause (c) part of it, because this seems quite an arbitrary time period here, where they will provide “for the making of non-consorting orders to prevent specified gang offenders from associating or communicating with each other for 3 years.” Firstly: why the three years? This seems incredibly arbitrary. How on earth would this actually be monitored and how would this be implemented? I’d love to be enlightened about that from the Minister. Thank you.

There are details that we will come to in further parts in the debate that we have, but it did strike me as odd that the member referred to progress that we’ve made over the past few years in terms of gangs. She is obviously not aware that there has been a 50 percent increase in gang membership over the last six years, and that’s not the progress we want to see. We’ve also seen an increase in violent crime in our community by 30 percent, and that is not an increase we want to see. So I think she might be overestimating the progress that has been made. So we’re concerned about the significant increase in gang membership. This legislation, in part, is set out to try and rectify that. In terms of the non-consorting orders, well, I’ll come to that detail when we come to that.

Thank you. As we do draw slightly closer towards the end of the day, I’m hoping the Minister will be able to answer a number of the questions that I’ve asked. Because although he made—and I can’t complain about the quality of the answer, but he referred to the sticker of the car being taken off. I have to accept that’s answered in part, but it didn’t really address the genuine issue, which is that when there’s an insignia on a piece of property that can’t be removed, how does that work with confiscation?

He hasn’t, though, addressed the other three questions that I have, which were—the one around the gang insignia is a really important one because it’s central to this bill. So I’d really like him to address the question of the breadth of the definition of insignia and the fact that it captures pieces of clothing, bandanas, jewellery, and, in fact, many, many—an unlimited range of things. So that’s the first thing I’d really appreciate if he would address.

The other thing which may seem technical but is actually really important—and I know he’s got his advisers there and so they will have an answer for him. If the answer is, “Oops, I’ll get on to that.”, that’s fine, I get it—it’s a technical piece of legislation—but it’s the “named person” point. He hasn’t addressed the named person point and he really should, because this is exactly what the committee of the whole House is for: it’s to go through the legislation to identify gaps, or apparent gaps. To seek the Minister’s assurance as to whether or not that exists; or that the assurance that he’ll fix it; or to point out that it’s a woeful hole and the Government doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s one of those three things. I’d appreciate an answer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question of clarification from the Minister regarding the definition. There are a number of questions I have around the interpretation clause 4 of Part 1. So the first one I would like to ask the Minister is with regard to the definition of immediate family. Now, in subclause (a) and (b) in terms of immediate family, (b) lists a whole list of what could be considered immediate family; however, I would like to draw the Minister’s attention on (a), which is around “culturally recognised”.

When we’re looking at the term “immediate family”, one of the few instances that then comes up later in the legislation, which I’m sure we will get to at some point, is around clause 15(a), which is around “A dispersal notice may not prevent any … persons”. So going back to the definition of immediate family, I wanted to know from the Minister how would one define “culturally recognised”, and, more importantly, who would be the kind of person that determines what is considered to be culturally recognised when it comes to dispersion?

The reason I ask this is because for me, for example, as Chinese, we consider immediate family to be much broader than just spouse, child, immediate siblings. My first cousins are intimately part of my immediate family but are not one of the listed possibilities—so in this case whether cousins would be considered as culturally recognised. And the reason I ask this is because of the key word that links between subclause (a) and subclause (b), which is “and”. So I wanted to know whether both could exist at the same time as an and/and situation. In which case, would subclause (b) be non-exhaustive as a list, which it is not clearly indicated. So if we’re able to, first of all, have that clarification from the Minister, that’ll be very much appreciated.

In addition to that in terms of the definition of immediate family, I alluded to the fact that when we are looking at that and what is considered culturally recognised, let’s paint a scenario of a family having a family gathering in a public place. A constable gets there and then says that the dispersal notice needs to be issued, but then realises later that this actually falls under the criteria of immediate family. Would the constable in that situation then need to actually approach the family and ask each of the members what their relationship is with each other? Would that fulfil under the requirement of immediate family, in which case a dispersal notice would not be issued?

If that is the case, when they go around to ask the relationship with immediate members, you’re going to get situations where, yes, there is going to be people who are going to be spouses, there are going to be children, there are going to be siblings, and there may potentially be what would be considered under some cultures broader family connections like first cousins, like second cousins, but within the context of that particular whānau, within the context of that particular grouping, they’re considered to be immediate family members.

In this case, when we’re looking at asking that question and the constable having a chance to speak to the group and asking those kind of questions, whether the constable will then be satisfied at the response from the family at face value or there is going to be more in terms of documentation that needs to be produced as a part of that. So the two questions that I would like to clarify from the Minister is (1) how would one determine culturally recognised in the context of the definition of immediate family; and (2) when the event happens, who will then determine whether they have achieved the definition of immediate family?

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The House stands adjourned until 2  p.m. on Tuesday, 6 August 2024. Have a productive weekend.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.