Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill

Mallard Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this

—however—there is a serious problem, I believe, with this bill. It is flawed, because it wants to wish away the problem of gangs in Wanganui rather than deal with the issues that lie behind the problem. We have a serious problem with crime committed by gangs and with violence in our towns and cities, and a serious response to those issues is needed. But I am sorry to say that this bill is a cosmetic response to those issues—literally, in many ways. It focuses on what gangs wear rather than on what gangs do, and that is the wrong approach to be taking.

We have to recognise that people in Wanganui have been dealing with difficult issues around gangs over recent times, but, unfortunately, they are being led astray by this bill. It is not the patches that commit the crimes; it is the gang members who commit the crimes and perpetrate the violence. We need to work on the causes of crime. It is disappointing, in many ways, that we are not looking at some of the deeper issues around crime.

In the Wanganui police district in 2007 there were about a thousand domestic violence incidents, and our attention should be focusing on the causes of those crimes that are happening there. Another major flaw in this bill is that it is piecemeal and ad hoc. It is a well-known fact among the legal community that we should not make criminal law on a region-by-region basis, because, quite simply, all that will do is move problems around rather than deal with them. It is almost like watching an episode of TheDukes of Hazzard or something, where people move to the county line to get away from a particular law. That is not the kind of criminal law—and Mr Bridges knows this from his experience—that we should have in New Zealand. It makes for a piecemeal and ad hoc approach, and it makes for a very difficult law to enforce.

We also know that this bill has significant issues in terms of definition. What is gang insignia? What is significant about the colours that gangs wear? Are they a significant part of their being and their role? Of course, we know that it would be completely impossible to ban a colour—to ban the colour red or the colour blue—from the city of Wanganui, yet we are trying in this bill to find a way to define insignia. I do not think that that will be able to be enforced in a way that can be meaningful.

We also know that the bill enables particular public places in the Wanganui area to be identified as being areas where gang insignia is not allowed to be worn. That is of concern to members on this side of the Chamber, because we know that the areas that will be targeted will be the central city areas—the areas where the Wanganui City Council would rather it could put the problem of gangs out of sight and out of mind. The areas that will not be targeted are where there are problems with gang violence—places like Castlecliff, Tawhero, and other such places. We know that this approach will simply enable the problem to be shifted out of the central city, out of the minds of the people of the Wanganui District Council, and, unfortunately, into the lives of people in those areas.

We also know that this bill was opposed on its first reading by the ACT Party. That was an interesting position to take—

What did Rodney say?

Grant Robertson Link to this

Rodney Hide actually had some very interesting things to say, I tell Mr Mallard, and I will take the opportunity to quote him, from his April 2008 speech. He said “I am so pleased that Mr Chester Borrows has relieved me of the obligation of voting for this shocking Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I said that the ACT Party would vote for the bill to go to a select committee. We could never vote for its third reading,”.

Mr Hide made some very good points in that speech about the fact that the concern we have about gangs is not about what they wear; it is about what they do. But Mr Hide has subsequently decided that his position has changed on the bill, and he said this on Television New Zealand’s Back Benches show. His position has changed as a result of a deal over the “three strikes” bill. Once upon a time the ACT Party was dealing with this issue on principle, but now it has moved on and is prepared to trade away those principles—about freedoms and rights—to be able to get its “three strikes” bill through.

Borrows CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

This bill prohibits the wearing of gang insignia that endorses, supports, or identifies a prohibited criminal group, as defined by clause 4, and as contained in a related by-law. The penalty for wearing such gang insignia is a $2,000 fine and confiscation of the patch, and there is a power to arrest for non-compliance. Aligned with this power is the power to stop and search vehicles in a public place, or vehicles that have travelled through a designated banned insignia area.

The previous Attorney-General, Michael Cullen, reported unfavourably in respect of the bill with a number of concerns, but I am pleased to report to the Committee that advisers now confirm that the vast number of those concerns have been addressed by changes made by the Law and Order Committee, with the help of the Labour members, of course, who showed some significant concern about, and interest in, this bill. They put their minds to it and some changes were made. Of course, changes are also made by the Supplementary Order Paper that I have tabled in respect of tattoos.

A number of concerns were raised about tattoos, and the committee was split on this issue. Labour members, with the support of New Zealand First, insisted that tattoos be considered gang insignia, so the National members, who voted against that, were voted down. Accordingly, Supplementary Order Paper 12 deals with that particular issue. The point is that tattoos should not be considered gang insignia, on the basis that somebody who has been tattooed, but who now wants to comply with the law, could be prevented from entering specified places, depending upon where that tattoo was. For instance, it would not be easy to cover up a tattoo on the face or one that was visible on the body, without creating further intimidation.

The purpose of the bill is to address intimidation of members of the public by gang members. It is all very well for the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, to talk about this bill’s superficial actions or superficial intent in respect of gangs. The point is that we are talking about addressing the problem of people who feel intimidated by members of the community who wear patches. We are talking about people who are forced to live among patched gang members or their associates. We are not trying to deal with the whole gang problem in this particular bill, and the previous speaker is quite right in suggesting that to try to do so in this legislation would be superficial or ad hoc. But we are not trying to do that. This bill is just adding to the sheaf of legislation in respect of gangs that the National Government has brought forward in the last few months. And the Labour Party actually supports it. So it is a matter of just adding to the legislation, rather than trying to address the whole problem.

If the previous speaker’s point is that a little piece of legislation like this will not address some significant amount of offending, we have to remember that no legislation on our statute book actually prevents offending. We have laws against murder, rape, and arson, but people still murder, rape, and burn things down. The point is that this legislation is trying to deal to one particular issue, and that is the intimidation that people feel when they are surrounded by patched gang members.

I was speaking to the Mayor of Wanganui this morning. He has been in the isolation ward of the children’s wing of Wanganui Hospital with his daughter who is sick. He has been there for 6 days. This morning he walked out of his daughter’s room and saw a patched gang member walking down the corridor of the children’s wing of Wanganui Hospital. It is not as if the Mayor of Wanganui was intimidated by that, but the point is what are we doing having patched gang members within our public buildings? For goodness’ sake, what are we doing having patched gang members in the children’s ward of Wanganui Hospital?

Some concern has been raised as to who could be included in the definition of “gangs”. I draw clause 4 to the attention of the Committee. Under its definition of “gang”, it names specific gangs: “(a) Black Power, Hell’s Angels, Magogs, Mothers, Mongrel Mob, Nomads, or Tribesmen;”. Clause 4 goes on to describe a gang as “(b) any other specified organisation, association, or group of persons identified in a bylaw made under section 5”. Clause 5 refers to gang members, associates, or supporters individually or collectively promoting, encouraging, or engaging in a pattern of criminal activity. Members of the Daimler Club who happen to wear insignia on the back of their embroidered jackets will not be listed as gang members, and could not be listed as gang members, under this bill.

Another point to make is that the good people of Wanganui have taken it upon themselves to take responsibility for something that exists right across New Zealand, and that is the abusive nature of gangs, their behaviour, and the behaviour of their associates. This is common in every large city, in every provincial city, and in every reasonable-sized town within our country. The people of Wanganui have used the provisions of the Local Government Act 2002, enacted by the Labour Party when in Government, to bring this legislation before the House. They have a right to do that. If the Labour Government never intended that to happen, why on earth did its members not put in the Act that it was outside the scope of that Act to bring in criminal legislation to apply within a region? This is just democracy.

The point made by the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, was that criminal law should not be done region by region, but we have a couple of very good examples. One of them is our law relating to curfews, which was imposed initially in Te Kūiti, and was gradually rolled out around the country. Another one is the liquor ban legislation. It was brought in to deal with the problem at New Year’s Eve in certain areas, and was then rolled out around the country. It is an example of criminal legislation that was enacted for one particular region, but was then rolled out around the country and taken up by other areas.

Yesterday morning the headline on the front page of the Wanganui Chronicle stated “Man killed with axe over red hoodie, court hears”. There is a depositions hearing, and it relates to the death of Paul Kumeroa, who was not a gang member, but who, on 23 September last year, was walking down the street while wearing a red T-shirt. He was set upon by a carload of patch-wearing Black Power gang members and beaten up. He was thrown to the ground and hit over the back of the head with an axe, and he died 2 days later. That is the nature of gang activity within our provincial towns. No doubt members opposite will say that this legislation would never have prevented that from happening, because he was wearing only a red T-shirt, and it did not have a gang insignia on it—in fact, it was a gang colour, or was perceived as such because it was red. The fact is that if gang insignia had been banned at the time, if the gang members in the car that had been cruising around Castlecliff for some time had been tipped out—because of their gang insignia—by the cops, using the powers that they will have under this legislation, that incident could well have been prevented—

How would it have prevented the crime?

Borrows CHESTER BORROWS Link to this

Under this legislation, the whole nature of policing gang members would be that if they were stopped and turned out, if they were arrested, if they were taken—

Grant Robertson Link to this

They would lose their patches and they wouldn’t commit the crime.

Borrows CHESTER BORROWS Link to this

No, that is not the point—that if they lost their patches, they would not continue to behave like that. But they would have been identified, and they would have been aware of a police presence. That is the nature of policing. I am sure that even Mr Robertson can get his head round that.

I want to make a couple of final points. The first one is about the youth survey that was conducted in Wanganui at the end of 2005, and reported in 2006. Young people were spoken to about their city and were asked to address a number of things. When they were asked about things that detract from Wanganui, 49 percent of them listed the intimidation by gangs as their top priority. There were 778 responses to this question, and 382 of them said that what made them feel the most unsafe in Wanganui was gang activity. The Wanganui District Council, having placed this issue before its population through a referendum, had an endorsement from that referendum to produce this legislation. The process requires that a local bill go out for public consultation. Having received no submissions—

Turei METIRIA TUREI (Green) Link to this

I have tabled some amendments to this legislation, and I will discuss them as they arise. However, I want to address clause 4, “Interpretation”. Is that what we are debating?

Tisch The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) Link to this

No, we are on clause 3, “Purpose”.

Turei METIRIA TUREI Link to this

Mr Borrows has set out some interesting propositions about this clause. I take exception to his trying to gain sympathy from Parliament by talking about the personal circumstances of the Mayor of Wanganui. That is not relevant to our discussion or our consideration of whether the citizens of Wanganui should be subject to legislation that severely restricts their freedom of movement.

One of the other cases that Mr Borrows raised concerned a young man who was beaten to death for wearing a red jacket. This bill makes that kind of violence more likely, rather than less likely. If this bill had been enacted, those gang members in the car simply would not have been wearing their patches as they roamed around, looking for a means to commit acts of violence. They would not have worn their patches. They would not have been stopped by the police. The police would have had no legal justification for stopping and searching them, and, therefore, there would have been no restriction on their movements. Those gang members would have found anybody who looked like another kind of gang member—in this case someone wearing a red jacket—and attacked him.

Part of what this bill will do by removing gang patches as a form of identification is to encourage gangs to use other means to identify themselves. Colour will be the primary means by which gang members identify their affiliation to a gang. Gang colours are part of the identification process already. We have yellow for the Killer Bees, red for the Mongrel Mob, and blue and black for Black Power. Interestingly enough, a lot of the white gangs, like White Power and some of the motorcycle gangs, do not have colours or patches—

Turei METIRIA TUREI Link to this

So this is racist as well, is it?

Yes, it is racist law. Those gangs will not be subject to this legislation. Nothing in this bill will impact on those gangs, because they do not wear gang patches. They have bald heads, or they have big boots. They will not be identified. But for those gangs that do identify themselves by colour, colour will be the primary means of identifying them. Gang members will be roaming around the countryside, looking for their gang enemies who are wearing the colours I have mentioned. This provision will put the citizenry of the whole country at greater risk of the kind of violence that Mr Borrows has just set out. I do not know whether that was an understood consequence of his legislation when he put it forward, but that is how it will be dealt with by gang affiliates and gang members. They simply will not wear their patches. They will revert to colours instead. Anyone who unknowingly wears gang colours will be much more vulnerable to gang violence across the country, not just in this one city.

I also note that there is nothing in this legislation that prevents the by-law from covering every single public area of the Wanganui District. In fact, this legislation could apply to every part of the Wanganui District. It does not restrict itself to city areas. It does not restrict itself solely to public places where the community congregates. In fact, it could cover every street, every paddock, and every place that the council has any control over. The entire region could be covered by this legislation. Effectively, that means that the discriminatory aspects of this legislation will then apply to any person going in or out of the Wanganui region. I assume that the Mayor of Wanganui City intended that to be the case. That is the kind of person he is and the kind of intention he would have. He would do his best—and I think Chester Borrows might have been involved in this—to keep from the public the fact that the entirety of the Wanganui region would be subject to this by-law.

People are subject to the criminal consequences of this law, even if there is no signage that tells them that there is a law affecting that particular area. Someone could commit a criminal offence by just driving through the Wanganui region. A person with no knowledge of this bill would still be subject to the provisions of it, and that could lead to a $2,000 fine. That is a significant breach of the human rights of New Zealand citizens.

Goudie SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) Link to this

I would like to focus on the purpose of the bill, which is to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district. The Wanganui District is looking to specify places. There is not much difference between this legislation and the liquor ban legislation that local authorities have successfully embraced country-wide. It has been a huge success up and down New Zealand. We can go to public places and families can take part in New Year celebrations, and not feel vulnerable around people who are drunk. That is because of liquor bans in public places. This bill is no different from that sort of legislation whereby a council is taking an opportunity to keep its community and families and children safe. Good on you, Wanganui!

The purpose of the bill is to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district—that is, the Wanganui District. But I say that other districts throughout this country will look to adopt this same legislation. The one problem with this bill is that it does not have a schedule whereby other local authorities can add their names to it and do the very same thing as Wanganui. I say, “Good on you, Wanganui! You are leading the way in making sure that you keep your community feeling safe and not so vulnerable, by prohibiting the display of gang insignia.” The definition of “gang insignia” does not exclude words—because words are also symbols—that might be related to a gang.

This legislation relates to specified places—unlike what was stated by the previous speaker, it does not apply just anywhere and everywhere. This is similar to the liquor bans implemented in specified public places in the district. If one reads the purpose—and I put it to Opposition members that perhaps they might like to actually read the purpose—it relates to specified places in the district. [Interruption] Look, we can tell! Members opposite are supposed to be focused on the purpose of the bill, but all the previous Opposition speaker could do was talk about another political party. He could not even focus on the purpose of the bill. I would be very interested to hear what Opposition members understand the purpose of the bill to be. Of course, this is a part of the nanny State complex that members of the Opposition have whereby they want to try to control everything and not allow communities to instigate their own forms of control and to act to safeguard themselves. That is what Wanganui is doing, but, oh no, the Opposition does not like that. It wants absolute control and to be the absolute arbiter of everything. I say “Good on you, Wanganui. You are taking proactive steps to look after your community, and you have the ability to do that through this local bill.” This is something that everybody—including all councils throughout this country—will be watching with interest to see what the outcomes are from the purpose of this bill, in regard to constraining the wearing of gang insignia in specified places within the district.

Although this bill is for the Wanganui District Council, there will be councils up and down the country that will look to the outcomes from this bill and want to do exactly the same thing in their district.

Grant Robertson Link to this

Make it a Government bill, then. Why isn’t it a Government bill?

Goudie SANDRA GOUDIE Link to this

Maybe that member might like to take a call—

Mackey Moana Mackey Link to this

He already has!

Goudie SANDRA GOUDIE Link to this

Well, he has, but he did not actually know what the purpose of the bill was. He did not focus on the purpose of the bill; he talked about other political parties. He might need to take another call to show the Committee that he actually has some understanding of it.

The purpose of the bill is commendable indeed. Wanganui is not alone in this problem. This problem is occurring in other urban environments, in other residential areas, and in other towns and cities throughout the country. That is why, in my view, this is going to be just one of the first steps for other local authorities around New Zealand.

Mackey MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

Dearie me! Five minutes can seem like a very long time sometimes.

Do you people ever have any other sort of introduction?

I say to Sandra Goudie that when Paul Quinn is sitting there looking embarrassed, one knows that one is on the wrong track.

I commend Chester Borrows, and the Wanganui District Council, for this bill. We believe that local bills should go to select committees and get a fair hearing, particularly in relation to issues as important as gang matters. But I am afraid that that is where the Labour Party support for this bill ends, and it is for the simple reason that it will not do anything and it may actually cause more problems than it solves. I have great respect for Chester Borrows but I was bit disturbed to hear what I thought was his criticising of a patched gang member for being in hospital visiting his sick child. I hope that is not what the member was saying, because he comes from a party that would be very quick to jump to its feet and criticise any patched gang member who abandoned his child in hospital, and who did not visit that child in hospital. So I find it offensive that we are now saying that patched gang members should be kept out of hospitals and prevented from visiting their children and meeting their responsibilities as parents, because they are doing that—they are. I want to know whether Wanganui Hospital would be part of the area included in this bill, because what matters is what gang members do, not what they wear. This bill will do nothing.

Chester Borrows then stomped on his own argument quite nicely when he pointed out a recent case and said that this bill would be good because it would identify gang members, and when those members were in a car the police would be able to pick them up. But of course under this bill it would just be a car of people not wearing anything that identified them, and police would not see what they may have seen before. Previously people may have rung in to say that they had seen gang members, so an unintended consequence of this bill could be that that may now not happen. I think that the member promoting the bill has stomped on his own argument quite nicely in that regard.

His points about tattoos also highlighted the complete “unworkability” of this legislation.

Oh, rubbish!

Garrett David Garrett Link to this

Sandra Goudie, the brains trust over there, says that is rubbish. Maybe she should listen for 5 minutes before she opens her mouth. Most people would tell her that the facial tattoos that gang members wear are amongst the most intimidating gang insignia there is. Of course, this bill will not cover that. Chester Borrows is putting up an amendment to say that, and I understand the reasons why he says it is not workable. But the fact is that we are taking away only some insignia. Some gang members will like the fact that they have now been made even more illegal—they are even listed in an Act of Parliament now as being something that society hates—and there will be others who will simply take off the patches, wear the colours, wear the bandannas, and go about doing exactly what they have always done. This Government has nothing in place to deal with the actions of gangs; it simply wants to deal with what they look like.

I want to know what the ACT Party thinks. What do Rodney Hide and Heather Roy think? At the time of this bill’s first reading Heather Roy said in the press: “The move to outlaw gangs, their patches and tattoos is nothing more than a ploy to give the appearance of action—a ploy that will yield no results or benefit to New Zealand society in the long-term struggle to deal with the country’s gang problem,”. I agree with her 100 percent. So why is Heather Roy now turning around and voting for this bill? I will tell members. It is because the ACT members have done a deal. They know that this bill will not work. They know that it would cause more problems than it solves. They know that because we do not know what areas these by-laws will cover, the rich parts of Wanganui will probably have by-laws banning gangs and the poor parts of Wanganui will not have these by-laws. But those areas will be areas where there are the kids that are most at risk of becoming gang prospects. Chester Borrows can shake his head but does he know that will not happen? I ask Mr Borrows where the by-laws will be. He does not know. It is exactly right that he does not know. We may end up in a situation whereby business owners in the areas that do not have the by-law have to deal with an influx of gang members in their areas. I ask Mr Garrett whether that is fair for business owners in those areas.

Should we not perhaps be doing things that actually solve the issue of gangs and that deal to gangs, like the proceeds of crime legislation that this Government is letting just float around? We do not know what the Government is doing with that. Why is that legislation languishing on the Order Paper when it would actually do something to deal with the financial base of gangs, and might actually do something to help us eliminate gangs? Why are we dealing with this flimflam bill that does nothing more than deal with what gang members wear and does nothing about what they do? I hope that Mr Borrows will take another call and answer that question.

Bridges SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) Link to this

It is excellent to be speaking on this very good bill, the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, put forward and guided skilfully through the House by the excellent member of Parliament for Whanganui, Chester Borrows. As I understand it, he is the only member in this House who has been a police officer and has dealt with these issues on the ground. It is very, very good to have his expert words and practical experience on this bill, as well as his ability to guide it through the House.

I want to do something novel at this stage, and actually talk a bit about the purpose of this bill—seeing we are debating the purpose clause. I noted what Grant Robertson, the member on the other side of the Chamber, said. He said that this bill had some problems in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. On this side of the Chamber we take the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act seriously. We take it very seriously. We did not act like the previous Attorney-General, who did not even issue a report on the Electoral Finance Act. We did not railroad that Act through. We take rights seriously. It is good to see that in the purpose clause we are no longer talking about the prohibition of the wearing of gang insignia. We have taken note of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and some of the criticisms in that regard. The bill no longer prohibits the wearing of gang insignia; it merely prohibits the displaying of the insignia. So people will not be in breach of the law if a gang patch is worn underneath their clothes—that makes the bill more “bill of rights friendly”, and I think that is a good thing.

I want to talk about tattoos, as well. There are some extreme ironies on the issue of tattoos, because before the election—and I am sure I am right—Labour wanted tattoos included in the bill. Labour was in favour of criminalising the issue of gang insignia tattoos. I said at the first reading of this bill and I say again that it is something that we needed to consider, and that we have considered. We will be putting forward amendments. The reason why we got rid of tattoos in this bill is very clear. It is common sense. Tattoos are permanent; they are not transitory. One cannot, at least not with any ease, take them off. My father-in-law lives in England, not in New Zealand. He, as a 21-year-old man after a few too many drinks, had some Welsh leeks tattooed on his forearm. He cannot get rid of those, at least not with any ease. So it is right that we do not include tattoos in this bill.

This reminds me of a case I was involved in—on the peripheries, with a witness in the case. I think he intended to have “mongrel” tattooed across the top of his forehead, but he missed out the “r”, and it was “mongel”—there you have it. He will not be criminalised by this bill because we do, unlike Labour, take the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act seriously. We have an Attorney-General who is very much concerned about these issues, and who is doing an excellent job.

This bill and its purpose represent democracy in action. It is an example of the people of Wanganui bringing forward an issue that they are feeling strongly about. Chester Borrows is listening to the people of Wanganui, its mayor has been listening to the people, and we now have a bill that, as I understand it, the public of Wanganui were 65 percent in favour of in a referendum. We are respecting the views of ordinary people in Wanganui, and it is not difficult to see why when we hear Chester Borrows talk about some of the very real and very serious gang issues in this city. As Mr Borrows said, just recently the Wanganui Chronicle reported that the court heard that a man was killed with an axe, over a red hoodie. There are serious gang issues of intimidation and the like, and much worse in this case—a murder. What this bill does, what its purpose is, and what it achieves is the banning of insignia in a specified locality of a city. I come back to some of the things that Grant Robertson was saying.

Garrett DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

I have been invited by Labour to stand and state our position on this bill. I have to say that it is not easy to do, because there has been considerable debate among our party, among our supporters, and among our caucus, on our position on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill—and for very good reason. I am afraid that as much as I like and respect my new colleague Mr Bridges, I cannot agree that it is a good bill. It is not a good bill for a number of reasons. It is not a good bill because it does not clearly define what gang insignia is. It is not a good bill because it does not spell out exactly which areas in the Wanganui District Council district can be designated as gang-free zones.

Before continuing, I would like to take up Ms Turei’s point. I find it rather saddening to have to say, for about the fourth or fifth time I have spoken in this House after Ms Turei, that it would be very helpful if she actually read the bill that she was debating. She just stated that there is nothing in the bill that prevents the entire Wanganui District from being designated a specified place. I thought she had trained as a lawyer—I did so. If the member read clause 5(5), she would see that it specifically states: “A bylaw must not be made under subsection (1)(a) if the effect of the bylaw, either by itself or in conjunction with other bylaws made under subsection (1)(a), would be that all the public places in the district are specified places.” So there is one point that is completely incorrect, and it would be very, very helpful if those who were going to debate this would actually read the bill.

The second point that Ms Turei made that I am afraid I must take issue with, and quite strongly—and I will explain why in a moment—is this absolute nonsense that the bill is aimed at Māori gangs. The bill specifically refers to a number of gangs, including Hell’s Angels, the Mothers, and the Magogs. During the adjournment week I was contacted by text by one Shagger Gilmour—he was stupid enough to write it—of the Magog Motorcycle Club. He made some fairly carefully veiled threats to me over speeches I had made on this bill earlier. Shagger is a senior member of the Magog Motorcycle Club, which, despite his claims to the contrary, is either entirely, or at least mostly, a white gang. He claimed, although he would not name who the member was, that a Māori had been a founder member for 32 years, and he suggested that I in fact knew nothing about it and had never been there. I named a few of the members and he went a bit quiet. Hell’s Angels is also wholly, or almost wholly, a white gang. So the claim that this bill is aimed at Māori gangs is absolute and utter nonsense. Perhaps Ms Turei, during her next call, may wish to refer to Rooter Johnson, Smasher Harris, or whoever is a Māori and a member of those named gangs.

But I get on to the guts of the bill. As I said, I am afraid I cannot agree entirely with my colleague Mr Bridges, or, I am afraid, with my colleague Mr Borrows. There are a number of things wrong with the bill. It will not make a noticeable difference to the criminal activities of gangs. It will not, sadly, make much difference to their presence in Wanganui. I have to say, in all fairness, that I agree with the point made by Ms Mackey and others—and, again, I feel rather bad about having to say this—in relation to the killing of the young fellow with the wrongly coloured hoodie: the bill is likely to cause, and not to solve, that kind of confusion.

The bill is a measure of the desperation of the Wanganui community. They have had enough. As a society we have been frozen in the headlights, like a possum or a deer, for 30 years, over what to do. Norm Kirk—well before Mr Hughes was born, I suspect—said he was going to take the bikes off the bikies. It did not happen, so we have had the problem since at least 1972.

Moroney SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

That was a very interesting speech from David Garrett in the Committee stage of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. It was very difficult to work out whether the member was supporting or opposing clause 3 of the bill. I ask Mr Garrett to just indicate whether he opposes or supports it.

Support.

Oh, OK. When Mr Garrett spoke on the purpose of the bill, he said it was a very bad bill. I thought that meant that he was going to oppose this particular clause—the purpose of the bill. I think he is quite right; the purpose is actually wrong. The intent is right, but the purpose of the bill is quite wrong. It aims to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in one district. That just will not work.

I congratulate Mr Borrows on bringing this bill forward, because—and I think Mr Garrett hit the nail on the head—people in that town are very worried. They are quite desperate about this issue, and Mr Borrows has made a reasonable attempt to bring something forward to actually address their concerns and their fears. But unfortunately what he is delivering to them will not work, and it will not deal with the fears that they have about the behaviour of gangs in their district. In fact, all it will do is drive the whole gang activity underground. It will create opportunities for gangs as they look for other ways of identifying themselves, of recruiting, and of going about their activities, which we in this House all abhor. We do not want them to continue, but this bill will actually make the situation somewhat worse.

I know that a number of my colleagues have already addressed the issue, but I am particularly worried about the aspect that Mr Borrows himself addressed, and which Metiria Turei and Moana Mackey have spoken about: if gangs are prohibited in a defined area from displaying their insignia, they will find other ways to identify themselves. Another way that they will find—and they already do this—is to just use a colour.

Hon Member

They do it now; they do it already.

Exactly. That is what they do already. So I say to Mr Borrows that I am sorry, but incidences like the example he gave about the young man being murdered because he was wearing the wrong colour in the wrong place at the wrong time, and because there was gang activity going on around him, are actually likely to increase under this bill. The gangs will not just go away. They will not just stop their activity because of this bill. Because of the way that they operate, they will need to find a way to indicate who they are and where they stand, and to continue their activity. They will do that—

Oh, for goodness’ sake!

Well, Sandra Goudie thinks that the gangs will go away. She believes that this will somehow stop gang activity. It is a nice thought—it is a really nice thought—but it is completely naive, I am afraid.

Gangs will wear colours, and the wearing of a red hoodie—or a blue hoodie, or any piece of clothing; it need not be a particular style of clothing—will take on even more significance if this bill is passed than what it already has. The colour will be what identifies that the gang is present and its activities are continuing.

Another one who hasn’t read the bill.

Well, I actually have read the bill. Mrs Goudie might be interested to know that from time to time I sat on the Law and Order Committee while the submissions were being heard on this bill. I saw and heard a number of people who were very involved in the issue of gangs, not because they were gang members themselves but because they were involved in policing gangs and trying to mitigate the effects of gangs on the community. Invariably they came forward to say that this is a nice idea, but it will just not work. It is not that simple, and, in fact, it might inadvertently drive up the wrong kinds of behaviours.

The intent of this bill is correct, but I am afraid that the purpose is not.

Read the purpose.

Moroney Sue Moroney Link to this

I will read the purpose out. Sandra Goudie seems to want it read out to her. It is very simple; it is one sentence, not like a bedtime story: “The purpose of this Act is to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district.” It will not work.

Henare Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this

I do not have too much time for the Mayor of Wanganui, but I do have a lot of time for people who try to put things right in their own communities. When we talk about insignia we are talking about images. We are talking about images that intimidate people and that over a period of time have grown to be an image of intimidation. They are not only images of ownership—they mean a lot to the Mongrel Mob and to Black Power and any other gangs—they also have a meaning of intimidation to the general public. That is what the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill tries to stop: the intimidation and the scaring of the community. That is what this bill tries to do. I think that to say it is racist because other gangs may not be captured by this bill is a wee bit wrong. The image of a Hell’s Angels jacket or a Filthy Few jacket—the insignia of those is just as intimidating to some people as that of Black Power or the Mongrel Mob.

Before we get too hung up about Black Power and the Mongrel Mob, I make a humble plea to my cousins and my whanaunga—who undoubtedly are members of both the Mongrel Mob and Black Power—that it is time to give it up.

This won’t make them give it up.

Henare Hon TAU HENARE Link to this

This bill will not make them give it up. A bill outlawing anti-Semitism will not make people give it up. A bill outlawing the Ku Klux Klan will not make the Ku Klux Klan go away. Those hand-wringing liberals over there want just to wave a wand and hope that it will all go away, but there are people on this side of the House who live with it every day in their own whānau and in their own communities, and have been trying for the last 30, 40, or 50 years to do something.

I remember when the storm troopers were alive and well in South Auckland, where I grew up. My uncle Jim, who was the last leader of the Māori Battalion and who brought them home, could not understand why these young Māori people were wearing Nazi helmets with a swastika on the back. He could not understand it. My plea is that this is just a little step, this is just a step by the community of Wanganui to say that it has had enough of being scared in its main street and it has had enough of being intimidated. That is my plea. It might be a humble plea and it might fall on deaf ears, but the fact remains that if people do not try, then we will not get anywhere. If people do not attempt things in their communities, with Parliament’s assistance and Parliament’s say-so, then we are all doomed, for if we do not allow communities to govern themselves, we surely cannot help them to govern themselves. That is all this bill does: it allows Wanganui—or Whanganui, as the case may be—to try to deliver something for its own community with the help of the biggest court in the land, the House of Representatives.

Ardern JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) Link to this

I thank the member from across the floor for the impassioned speech. I have to first start by drawing out the commonality that existed there. Of course members on the Opposition side of the Chamber wish to see an end to gangs in our communities; there is no dispute there. Of course we wish to see an end to the intimidation that comes with gang membership in our community. I find it quite insulting when members on the other side of the Chamber try to create a division between members by claiming that we on this side do not know about the impact that gangs have. I find that insulting. I think there is awareness across all parts of this Chamber of the issues that gangs bring to our community. The sticking point is what will work, and that is the bit I want to dwell on.

But first, before I go on to that, I say to members that the member who represents ACT rose to his feet earlier and gave quite a harsh speech against the bill. He obviously has quite strong feelings—and I respect that, particularly because they are in line with my views on the bill. But still, Mr Garrett has clarified for us that ACT will, in fact, be voting in favour of this bill, and he has done so already. I think that probably highlights to the rest of the Committee the sacrifice he is willing to make in exchange for the “three strikes” bill. We already know that the reason he has openly spoken out against this bill but has still chosen to vote for it is that the ACT Party does not wish to see its “three strikes” policy fall to the wayside, and voting for this bill is the sacrifice that ACT is willing to make. The evidence for that is the 5-minute speech that Mr Garrett has already given.

We have already spoken of the symbolic nature of this bill, and some further evidence of that is the fact that this bill has not been adopted as a Government bill. If it was as sound as members across the other side of the Chamber claim it is, why is it not a Government bill? If, in fact, we are going to see this measure brought in in a piecemeal way, I look forward to seeing the member from Coromandel introduce a bill like this one for her region. I look forward, also, to seeing the member from Tauranga introduce a similar local bill. In fact, I am very happy to speak to the local councils in those areas to see whether they would support those members in such moves.

There has been a lot of crowing from the other side of the Chamber, calling for us to read out the purpose of the bill. I am very happy to do that now—as Ms Goudie has pleaded with us to do. The purpose as stated in the bill is: “This Act is to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district.” Looking beyond that, we have to ask why Mr Borrows has chosen to put that purpose into the bill. What is he trying to achieve? He is trying to change the impact that gangs have in his community. And what is that impact? It is intimidation. What does that intimidation come via? It is via crime, violence, and all of the things that stem from them in a community. So there is an underlying reason beyond just the simple purpose of the bill, and that is what we are attempting to achieve through that purpose.

But the patch alone actually bears no relationship to intimidation and crime; those are what a gang member does. A Brownie does not create fear in a community; what she wears does not create fear. If someone is wearing a gang patch, it signifies to the people in the community that that person is involved with other things: that the person is involved in violence, crime, drug rings, and other things. This bill does nothing to change the gang activity that creates the intimidation. We know it is the intimidation that Mr Borrows is trying to change; we have to acknowledge that.

A gang patch is not the only signifier that someone belongs to a gang. We have already heard a discussion around colours. Colours are a major signifier that someone is a member of a gang. If Ms Goudie chose to visit my part of the community—Huntly, for instance, or Ngāruawāhia, where the Bloods and the Crips have a presence—she would find it is not a gang patch that people wear to signify their membership of a gang, it is a colour. It is blue and it is red. I would like to ask Mr Borrows whether a secondary impact of this bill will be that colours will be banned. I anticipate that he will stand up and say that that is not what he intends. What will stop gangs from simply reverting to colours that also hold representation? Just to make the point again, I say that if Ms Goudie was walking down the street in Coromandel, I doubt whether she would be intimidated by any one person wearing a shade of blue in the street. Yet that is one of the colours that some gangs choose to wear.

So what, again, is it that people would be intimidated by if someone happened to be wearing blue or—make a leap—a gang patch? It is more than the patch that is the problem, and that is what members on this side of the Chamber have been talking about. What are we doing to tackle the underlying issues that cause people to fear gangs? This bill does not address that, and that is what members on this side of the Chamber are calling for.

We have also talked a little bit about the impact of tattoos and the fact that there has been some debate about the possible inclusion of tattoos in the bill. I respect the point that was made both by the member from Tauranga and also by Mr Borrows that a person who has tattoos—perhaps through previous membership of a gang—but then chooses not to affiliate with that gang deserves to have the right to move on, and therefore tattoos should not be included. That again highlights a fact: a tattoo in itself does not actually represent the lifestyle that comes with gang membership, and the member does not wish to punish those who choose to move on from the gang lifestyle. What we should be targeting is the lifestyle that comes with gang membership.

Ardern JACINDA ARDERN Link to this

She’s not targeting anything!

I can see Ms Goudie is very confused by the depth of the argument that I am presenting. She does not quite understand where I am going with this, because it is not symbolic and simple. It is not simple, because we recognise that tackling gangs, tackling crime, and tackling the crime that gangs perpetrate are not simple things to deal with.

Ardern JACINDA ARDERN Link to this

Hello! Get with the programme!

I know it is complex. I ask Ms Goudie to stay with me; she might actually learn something.

We also need to ask whether, if we are not to include tattoos in this bill, that does, in fact, encourage tattoos being used as a means of substitution for patches. If I am no longer allowed to wear a patch when I am in certain parts of Wanganui—we are not sure which parts they are; not all parts, I imagine, but probably just the affluent parts—and I am not allowed to wear a T-shirt or a jacket on my back, do I tattoo myself instead? Is that considered to be acceptable within the provisions of the bill? I find it hard to draw that distinction. I think this highlights how difficult the workability of this bill will be.

Mr Borrows has also pointed out there has been a recent crime tragedy in his own community, when an individual was attacked for wearing a colour in and around a gang area. Again, we have touched on the issue of reverting to colours. This bill will encourage more incidents like that, because soon gangs will not look for patches. They will look for the colours that represent patches, which will put members of the community at greater risk and make them more vulnerable if they simply walk around in a colour that could be identified with any number of these gangs. We have to be honest about that.

In fact, I have seen some uncertainty from across the Chamber about this bill. That is not about its intentions. Again, I must highlight to Mr Borrows that we support the intention of this bill. We support the fact that Wanganui is trying to tackle the issue, but we believe that we have to go to the heart of the issue and that this bill does not do that. In fact, some National members have raised that. Richard Worth, in 2006, said that efforts to ban gang patches, although well intentioned, may in fact—

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

We are debating clause 3, the purpose clause. I raise two issues in connection with the purpose clause. The first is around the comments made by Chester Borrows about the intent and purpose behind the bill. He said that the bill was about addressing the intimidation that people in Wanganui were experiencing. Although I can certainly understand and sympathise with that point of view, the problem is that the intimidation will not go away when the patch goes away. In the end, this bill is, as stated in the purpose clause, about prohibiting the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district. If this bill is simply about prohibiting the display of gang insignia, it will not achieve the intent that Mr Borrows mentioned. Intimidation comes from the people who are wearing the patches and the actions they undertake.

Once again, we see that the purpose of this bill is, unfortunately, cosmetic. It is about the clothes that people wear, not the actions they take. I spoke earlier in the debate and quoted from a very interesting and very good speech made by the Hon Rodney Hide in the first reading. He said: “The concern that we have about gangs is not about what they wear; it is about what they do.” That was the view of the ACT Party when this bill was first debated—

Chauvel Charles Chauvel Link to this

When they were liberal. They were the liberal party!

Mapp Hon Dr Wayne Mapp Link to this

That is right—when they were the liberal and principled liberal party. Mr Garrett spoke earlier in the debate, and he appeared to say that the bill was bad. He identified a number of areas on which he agreed with speakers from the Labour Party, but he confirmed for us later that ACT members will be supporting the bill, which is an extraordinary situation and, clearly, quite different from where they were. They have done a deal on the “three strikes” bill.

I return to the question of the purpose of the bill and the notion of addressing intimidation. In a sense, not only does this bill fail that intent—in terms of not actually addressing intimidation, because it does not and cannot address the actual behaviour and attitudes—but it also simply shifts that intimidation around the district. As the purpose clause states, this bill is about prohibiting the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district. This bill will enable the Wanganui District Council to specify those places by by-law. We know that the places specified will be central city areas. The council will certainly look at those areas, and possibly one or two other areas. The specified places will not be in suburbs like Castlecliff, where there is a lot of gang tension. In effect, the origins of the intimidation will not be addressed by this bill.

The purpose clause is not only about specified places but about specified places in the Wanganui District. That is one of the great limitations of this bill. All it does is move the problem around rather than try to address the underlying causes behind it. The overall intent of Mr Borrows in bringing this bill to the House is one we can all understand. We know that he did it on behalf of the Wanganui District Council, and that the people of Wanganui were interested. Obviously, Labour voted for the bill to go the Law and Order Committee for the very reason that the people of Wanganui deserve to have their concerns heard. But now that the bill has reappeared before us, the Labour Party is not able to support it because its intent and purpose will not be met. The bill is flawed and unfortunately offers false hope to the people of Wanganui—false hope that, somehow or other, this legislation will start to limit some of their problems.

I do want to say some positive things about Wanganui. It is a great city. It is a thriving community and has a thriving art sector. It is a city that people should visit. It has a beautiful river and a beautiful environment that people can enjoy. It is difficult for me to stand here and talk about Wanganui in a negative light, but that is, in a sense, what this bill is making us do. The people of Wanganui are being given false hope by a bill that is simply cosmetic and does not try to deal to the deep, underlying issues of attitude and violence.

The people of Wanganui actually want this bill.

I tell Dr Mapp that the people of Wanganui want some solutions to the problem of gangs, and they are being given false hope by a bill that simply will not do anything to address those underlying issues. It is a cosmetic response to a serious problem. Everybody in this House who has spoken in the second reading and Committee stage debates has said that this is a serious problem that needs a serious response. This bill is not that.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) Link to this

I too will take a short call on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, because I am deeply worried about it. I congratulate Chester Borrows, the member for Whanganui, on bringing it to the House. As the member for Rotorua no more, I understand that the member is trying to fight the good fight for Wanganui and is convinced that the people of Wanganui want a solution to the problem. Well, this is not the solution. This is flawed legislation, and the lawyers on the other side know that. If the Minister of Police, Judith Collins—I am pleased she is in the Chamber tonight—looked at the community safety order bill for Rotorua and at this bill, she would start to see that people want a solution. I admire Mr Borrows for bringing this bill to the House, but I am sure he knows—as I knew in Rotorua—that this bill will not solve the problem.

The purpose of this bill is flawed, to begin with. The purpose clause states: “The purpose … is to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district.” Well, how crazy. We in Rotorua also sat down to try to specify which bits of the district we were concerned about, as I am sure that Mr Borrows has done with the Mayor of Wanganui. How do we solve the problem by saying that an insignia can be worn in one area but not in another? It is a bit like the Mayor of New York’s broken windows campaign, which pushed everybody out of New York. Judges outside New York said that they hated the legislation because all the criminals of New York had moved out into their patches, and they did not want that. They thought that the criminals could be better managed more centrally in New York. It is a very principled issue that we are trying to grapple with here tonight, and this bill is absolutely flawed.

As we all know, there is a stigma attached to gang insignia. Our mentioning and naming of the gangs will make them so proud. The gangs will be emblazoned in the law. They will just change their names. We have the Killer Bees down in Wanganui now. I bet they are there and they will change their name to something else that we cannot predict as soon as they see their name mentioned in this legislation, and we will be back within 5 years looking at this flawed and faulty legislation. I heard Simon Bridges say that 65 percent of Wanganui’s people want this bill. Of course they want solutions to community and social problems in their city.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK Link to this

They believe that this is the solution.

I say to Mr Bridges that I do not believe that they have even read the bill, because it is so flawed. I do not believe that the member, who has a good, solid knowledge of the law, could honestly put his hand across his heart and say that this is a fantastic bill. In fact, if the member thought that then he would go to the Minister of Police and ask her to fix the situations in Rotorua, Rodney, Wellington Central, and across the country. Chester Borrows could hold his head high and say that he had the oyster in the shell that got a bit of sand in it, that he got the argument going nationally, and that he actually fixed the problem of dysfunction in communities and in society for the rest of New Zealand. Good, sincere attempts to fix things locally do not fix things nationally.

What about the good people of Pātea? Gangs will move to Pātea because the going is not so tough there. Is that really what the region wants? The purpose of this bill is fundamentally flawed. It is a very sincere attempt, but there is no way I can support this bill simply because it is faulty law. I am sure that the good Minister will be looking for solutions in towns throughout New Zealand. This is certainly not the right tool to use.

Roy The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) Link to this

Before I call the next member I will make a little comment. From time to time this House gets a bit tied up over the appropriate name of members. The member in the chair is “Borrows” not “Burrows”. He has not asked me to do this but let us just try to get it right for his sake, seeing as he is the member in the chair.

My apologies. I would be the first to make that point myself.

Roy The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) Link to this

No, that is fine. There is no great angst about this matter.

Hodgson Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) Link to this

Every now and again in this Chamber, along comes a mighty fine bill that looks thoroughly good and rational, but it cannot work. The question is whether the assembled 122 members of Parliament in this Chamber will rise and say that the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill is a good idea but it will not work so they cannot pass it, or whether they will hang their heads, shift their eyes a little to one side, and say that Chester Borrows is a good guy and Wanganui is a good city so we should pass this bill knowing that it will not work. That is really what is in front of us. We have a choice of either passing legislation that everyone knows will not work, or not passing it.

It seems to me that the appropriate thing, and certainly the principled thing, is to say to Chester Borrows and to the people of Wanganui: “Yes, we understand that you guys have a gang problem. You don’t have it on your own but you have one and it’s a baddie. Yes, we understand that members of the public are being intimidated. Yes, we understand that the majority of the people of Wanganui want to have some action, such as this legislation.” In fact, if I was asked to support this legislation without understanding what it meant, I would go for it myself. But we are lawmakers and our job is to understand, or to try to understand, as ordinary folk—I am no lawyer—the effect of the law and to make a judgment on behalf of the people of Wanganui, and the people of New Zealand, as the case may be, as to whether it is good legislation. This is not good legislation. That does not mean that the member for Whanganui, Chester Borrows, should not have brought it to the House. I might well have done the same thing. I might well have tested the will of Parliament and I might well have taken this bill to the House to raise the issue of intimidation by gangs in Wanganui or elsewhere. I might well have done that. But there is a difference between putting a bill in front of the House, and deciding that it will be part of our statute. There is a difference.

In this case, this legislation should not become part of our statute and there are myriad reasons why not. The first reason that comes to my mind is that gang names will become creatures of statute themselves. For goodness’ sake! Should we have the Mongrel Mob or Black Power written into our statute book? I do not think so. The second reason—the one that has been alluded to by earlier speakers and I think matters most of all—is that this legislation, if passed, will give false hope to the people of Wanganui, because it will fail. Let us follow that through. When it does fail—and in a minute we will explore how it might fail—are the people of Wanganui not entitled to say: “What the hell did you pass that legislation for? We have had a look at the debates, and at least some members of the House said it would not work. It didn’t work. You passed it. You set us up. We thought this legislation was going to achieve something and it turns out it didn’t.”?

Let us explore why this legislation might not work. Again, plenty of speakers have given lots of speeches on why this legislation might not work. I will make just one point. Let us imagine that this bill moves into law on any particular Tuesday. Come Wednesday, a group of people who used to be members of a gang can put on their boy scout scarves and wander up and down the street, without their insignia, menacing people. If that does happen then no doubt someone will try to test the legislation in court. My best guess is that it will not catch them. We would then have a situation where the gang members, who are supposed to be the bad guys, have just put it up the authorities. They will have gone to court and won, and we think this is a good idea? I do not think it is remotely good; I think it is an outrageous idea.

I would prefer to take the approach of a National member of Parliament. Let us see what the Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power—

Hodgson Hon PETE HODGSON Link to this

Oh, come on! Doesn’t the member realise they’ve got a liquor ban? Talk about liquor bans. What do they do with liquor bans? Exactly the same thing.

I will quote—for the “Orange Roughy”—what the Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, had to say about National’s ideas to curb gang activity. Let us read a few of them out and see whether they might be more effective in Wanganui and elsewhere in dealing to the issue this bill seeks to deal to. Here is the first idea: “National is looking at changing the criminal laws to: Nominate gang membership as a factor in sentencing.” In other words, membership of a gang will be taken into account—one assumes adversely—as a factor in sentencing. The second idea from National, only 2 years ago, was to “Strengthen the ability of the police to remove and storm gang fortifications.” The gang fortifications legislation was strengthened back in Muldoon’s times. The Minister of Justice is saying that it may need to be strengthened further. Does that sound like a good idea for the people of Wanganui? Let us take a look at the next idea: to “Make it easier for police to intercept gang communications.” This is an issue about privacy and there are some issues around that. But let us say it was easier for the police to intercept gang communications. The police could be ahead of the game much more readily than they would be otherwise. They would be able to get to the gangs’ point of congregation before the gangs did.

Another idea was to make it “an offence to be a member of a criminal organisation.” There is a difference. If a gang is considered to be a criminal organisation, then that, in itself, becomes an offence. That is an interesting idea. It is nothing to do with insignia and nothing to do with what people wear; it is so much more to do with how people behave and whether they cause strife to ordinary folk. “The key”—said National 2 years ago—“is to take the status, the money, and the power off the gangs.” The idea was to leave them their clothes but take off the status, the power, and the money. What does this bill do? It leaves the status. In fact, it enhances it because it makes gang members creatures of statute. It leaves them with the money. It leaves them with the power, including new enhanced powers to dick around the justice system, to wear their boy scout scarves or whatever it is they choose to wear to cause confusion, to lead to a court case, and to win it and have the people of Wanganui say: “What the hell was all that about? Why did Parliament waste its time? Chester Borrows did a good job in taking it down there, but the collective went the wrong way on it.” Well, I am not going to be part of that collective. Labour will oppose this legislation.

One other thing needs to be said about this legislation before I resume my seat. The ACT Party has behaved in a most unprincipled manner in this issue. The ACT Party sets itself up to be the party of principle. Well, in my eyes it is not the party of principle any more. It used to be a party of principle. It had a principled stand on things that I disagreed with—many things that I disagreed with. Now I do not see that it has any principle, at all. Its position earlier on when this legislation was introduced was liberal, or libertarian, or whatever one might expect from the ACT Party. But, no, it has itself a new hard line on law and order. David Garrett wants the “three strikes” legislation through and hopes he can get a deal with National—some sort of quid pro quo—so that ACT members can speak against this legislation but vote for it. That is exactly what Mr Garrett did. He spoke against the legislation but said he will vote for it. That is not what I would expect from the ACT Party. I never expect to agree with the ACT Party, but I do expect consistency from it. That has been the nature of the ACT Party since its inception. It has been consistently wrong, in my view, but it has been consistent. Not any more. Now it has a situation where it will have some members voting in one direction and some members voting in another direction, at least if the ACT members can arrange it and regulate themselves—these regulation busters—enough to get themselves voting in two different directions, just because they think they will have an improved opportunity to get ACT’s “three strikes” legislation through.

I am opposed to this bill, but I congratulate the member on bringing it forward. He is doing what a local member should do, and I think he has done it well. This legislation should not pass, and the ACT Party needs to discover whether it ever wants to be a party of principle again.

Flavell TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

E te Waha Kōrero o te Whare tēnā koe i tēnei pō. Ā, kua tū ake e te Whare nā runga i te āhuatanga o te taenga mai o te Kīngi o te motu, a Kīngi Tuheitia, ki waenganui i a tātau. Ehara i te mea he whānui ngā kōrero engari ko tāku, he mihi ki a ia, he mihi ki te kāhui ariki kua tae mai ki roto i te Whare Pāremata o te motu. Nau mai, nau mai. Tēnā kōrua me koutou i hara mai i te pō nei. Otirā, ki a tātau e noho atu nei, kua tae mai a Kīngi Tuheitia, ka mihi ki a ia nā runga i te āhuatanga, koia tērā e noho i runga i te ahurewa tapu o ngā mātua, o ngā tūpuna. Huri noa i te Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātau.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and greetings. To the House, I rise to take this brief call to acknowledge King Tuheitia’s presence in our midst and to welcome him on your behalf into Parliament House of the land. Welcome, welcome. Greetings to you two, and to those of your retinue who came here tonight. To those of us seated about in the Chamber, Kīngi Tuheitia, the reigning monarch of the King Movement, and of those who carried that mantel in the past, is before us. Greetings to you, greetings to you, and to us throughout the House.]

Link to this

A party vote was called for on the question,

That clause 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 64

Noes 58

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 Interpretation

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

Clause 4 is the interpretation clause of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. There are a number of points that I want to raise as we work through the different interpretations in the bill. In this clause we will find the nub of some of the concerns that have been expressed on this side of the House. It is when we start to delve into the meaning of terms such as “gang”, “gang insignia”, and “public and specified place” that we actually find the difficulty for Labour in this bill. The difficulty is not the intention of the bill. As we have already discussed, the intention is one that we can all sympathise with, but in terms of the interpretation, it is a difficult area for us.

Let us start to work through the clause. The first area I will talk about is the meaning of “Council” and “district”. Here “Council” means “the Wanganui District Council”, and “district” means “the district of the Wanganui District Council”. As we have already said, this presents us with a difficulty. By using those interpretations of the meaning of “Council” and “district”, the bill sets up a situation where we are making criminal law for a specific region. Making criminal law for a specific region is a very, very difficult and dangerous area, because all we do at that point is move a problem from district to district. As we have noted a number of times in this debate, the Wanganui district does have a gang issue, as do a number of other districts.

If we are defining and interpreting “Council” and “district” to mean “the Wanganui District Council”, what will the good people of Palmerston North be thinking tonight, when they are listening to and watching this debate?

A victory for democracy!

They will be wondering whether, by this bill and by this interpretation, Parliament is simply shifting the problem from Wanganui to Palmerston North. The gangs might even find their way to Tauranga to see Mr Bridges, but a number of problems are created when we create laws like this. It pushes us as a Parliament towards the notion that we can make criminal law on a district by district basis. We have seen internationally that that creates difficulty: it moves crime around; it creates definitional problems about where boundaries are and where they are not. That shows that in the interpretation clause we are, in fact, creating a problem for ourselves.

The next interpretation in the clause is around the meaning of “gang”. We have already heard tonight a number of contributions on this issue. In the bill at the moment, we have a number of gangs named. As has already been said by my colleagues, that is effectively a badge of honour for those gangs. We have already heard stories of people saying: “I want my gang to be in there. I want my gang to be named in the Act. That’s the badge of honour for me.” As my colleague Mr Hodgson, who has recently resumed his seat, said, it is a very, very bad thing to have a part of legislation that names a gang and puts a gang on our statute book. I do not want to see gangs on our statute book. I do not want to see gangs in our communities. This bill is effectively giving them that badge of honour by putting their names into the bill.

Then we move to paragraph (b), which opens up the question of how the Wanganui District Council will define other organisations. In this paragraph, “gang” also means “any other specified organisation, association, or group of persons identified in a bylaw made under section 5”. Well, here we go. The Wanganui District Council is about to start deciding what is and what is not a gang. We will come to that when we get to clause 5 later in this debate. I think that is also an extremely dangerous path for the Wanganui District Council to be going down in trying to define what is a gang. We are already naming some of those gangs, but we are also opening up a separate can of worms when we have to define which organisations are gangs. I think the Wanganui District Council is being placed in an incredibly difficult position by this bill.

It’s their bill!

It might well be the council’s bill, I say to Mrs Goudie, but that does not mean that we as a Parliament should accept every single idea that comes from a district council into this Parliament. Our job is to make law, to stay here, and to show some leadership. We welcomed this bill coming from the Wanganui District Council, and referred it to the Law and Order Committee, but now—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. I am not quite sure how a lecture on what our job is supposed to be has anything to do with clause 4 and the interpretations.

Roy The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) Link to this

I do not need any assistance. I will overrule that point of order.

The issue that we have here is that we could simply rubber-stamp every bill that came through from a district council, or we could look at it and say that we understand the concerns that the people of Wanganui have, and that we want to try to limit and prevent the intimidation they are feeling, but that this is not the bill to do it. The definition of “gang” in this clause is not a part of the bill that will actually help people. “Gang” is defined here in a way that I think is problematic both because of the organisations named, and also because of the people whom the district council is now able to name. I think that is very problematic.

Then we move on to the interpretation of “gang insignia”, and this really is the nub of the problem in this clause.

A great definition. Brilliant.

Mackey Moana Mackey Link to this

I will read what it says: “gang insignia (a) means a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed to denote membership of, an affiliation with, or support for a gang; and (b) includes any item of clothing to which a sign, symbol, or representation referred to in paragraph (a) is attached”. I can understand why Simon Bridges is so supportive of this particular clause, because it is a lawyer’s paradise to have this definition of “gang insignia”. What do we mean when we say “a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed to denote membership …”? What does that mean? Is that a scarf? Is that a T-shirt? Is it a particular coloured T-shirt? A red or a blue T-shirt? What is it?

A bandanna.

Is it a bandanna? These are the things that will then be debated and questioned in the courts, giving yet more promotion to the gangs that are associated with some of those things. Fundamentally, this clause gives a false hope that knowing and being able to say what is “gang insignia” will fix behaviour. In the end, people will find ways around it. Once the courts define it as, perhaps, a bandanna or a scarf, we will move on to another item of clothing, another kind of badge, or another colour. It will not help solve any of the problems to simply keep redefining “gang insignia”. Paragraph (b) of this definition of “gang insignia” refers to “any item of clothing to which a sign, symbol, or representation referred to in paragraph (a) is attached”. Well, what will that be?

“I love Mum”.

An “I love Mum” badge, or a piece of embroidery. Whatever it is, we will have an endless round of legal debate on what “gang insignia” actually means. It is not a suitable interpretation.

Then we move on to the definition and interpretation of “public place”. What is a public place? According to the bill, a public place “(a) means a place—(i) that is under the control of the Council; and (ii) that is open to, or being used by, the public, whether or not there is a charge for admission;”, a “road”, or “any part of a public place.” That is very good. We know and we have defined what we are talking about. We are talking about areas in public, but a public place is a specified place. That is the thing. It is a specified place that the district council decides on. That means that the district council will begin looking around. We know that they want to take people out of the central city. They do not want the image of gang patches in the central city. What does that mean? Once again, we move the problem around. We shift the problem, rather than actually trying to solve the problem. We know that the problem will be shifted to those suburbs where there are already gang issues. It will not be shifted to the rich areas of Wanganui; it will not be shifted to the central city. We can guarantee that a specified place under the Wanganui District Council will not include those areas such as Castlecliff where we know there are already gang problems.

Right through this interpretation section we can see difficulties, legal wrangles, and problems that have been shifted from place to place. It is quite simply an unacceptable clause for us to be passing as a Parliament, no matter the good intent of the member who has brought it before us.

Mackey MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

I am happy to stand up and take a call on this interpretation clause. I agree with a lot of what my colleague Grant Robertson has been saying. I think he has outlined Labour’s concerns about this bill particularly well. I reiterate the concerns that Labour has.

Then why is the member talking?

Well, if National members think that this is such a great bill, why do they not pick it up as a Government bill and make it apply to the whole country?

We don’t need to; it’s before us.

OK, I have to explain something to Mr Paul Quinn: this applies only to Wanganui. Does the member realise that? My point is that if National members think that this is such a great bill, why do they not pick it up and make it apply to the whole country?

Because only Wanganui wants it.

I am looking forward to seeing the survey tabled from Mr Paul Quinn from which he takes the piece of information that only Wanganui wants this legislation. I suspect there is none, because one of the concerns we have about this legislation is this passing of criminal law, district by district. I do not think that that is an avenue we want to go down, at all.

I come to the definition of a public place. Another concern I have about this bill is that we are being asked to pass legislation when we do not know where it will apply in Wanganui. We do not know what the legislation will look like when the by-laws are passed. I congratulate the Law and Order Committee; I think they have done a good job of trying to come up with the best they can for a very bad bill. We do not know where that provision is going to apply. As it stands, the bill basically provides carte blanche to put it anywhere. But I think I know where it will apply. This legislation will not apply in the poorest parts of Wanganui. It will not apply in the parts of Wanganui where people living there are citizens with the least power to oppose this kind of thing. It will apply to some of the wealthier areas—some of the nicer areas, if you want to put it that way—in Wanganui. Once again, we will end up with our poorest communities—those already struggling to deal with the realities of gang activity—having to put up with even more because this legislation is being driven into their area. I want to know how any member of this House can vote for that and say that that is an OK thing to do.

We should be doing a lot more to eliminate the activities of gangs, but pushing them into the poorest parts of our communities, where they can cause even more trouble, is not the way to do it: that is going to make it worse. How will local business people in the public areas where gangs are going to be pushed into, feel, when suddenly some business people in Wanganui are protected from having any gang members but they are not? How will those business people feel when they are not in an area that is covered by a by-law? One of the issues I have with this bill is that we are being asked to pass it without knowing the actual impact that it will have on Wanganui and its citizens. It is very, very difficult for this Parliament to do that, in an area of criminal law.

I come to the definition of gang insignia. We have amendments on the Table that both do pretty much the same thing. They seek to take tattoos out of the definition of gang insignia. We appreciate the reasons why that provision has been put up. It is difficult—

You people put it in there!

Once again, I might have to educate Mr Paul Quinn. On select committees Labour members like to work constructively to write the best law that we can—we do like to do that. We have decided that this is not a law, in its entirety, that we want to support, but that does not mean that we will not be constructive at the select committee and try to come up with the best law that we can.

I do not see the point of banning gang patches if we are not going to ban tattoos. That creates an incentive for people to go out and get their faces tattooed with their gang insignia because they can no longer wear it on their T-shirts. I want to know how that is a good outcome of this legislation. I think that if we were to talk to people, they would probably tell us that they find a facial gang tattoo—an insignia—one of the most intimidating things. I think that that is more intimidating than a red or black T-shirt or a red or black bandanna. If this amendment goes through, we are being asked to pass legislation that says to gang members that they are allowed to go into a certain area with no gang patches except for tattoos—they have to take their T-shirts, jackets, or whatever, off, but their tattoos are OK. So if people want a permanent gang patch that they cannot be made to take off, they can go out and get a tattoo. I do not necessarily think that that is the kind of signal we want to send.

In the end, Labour is voting against this legislation because we do not think it is going to work at all, anyway. But if we are looking at the details of these amendments, I think that that is probably quite an unintended consequence that we should avoid. If we look at the definition of gang, as my colleague has already pointed out, we see that it is a badge of honour to be put up—I will not take much longer, at all, if my call is extended, Mr Chairperson—

Promise?

—unless Mr Paul Quinn keeps interjecting on me, and then I am going to take another 5 minutes after this. He has so much to say. Maybe Mr Quinn might want to stand on his feet and take a call, if he is allowed to—if his whips will let him.

I can’t get in; you’re taking up all the time.

No, he cannot get up. He has been told to stay in his seat and not to say anything. His whips are saying “Your mouth is working for the Opposition; please, just stay quiet.”

If we briefly come back to the legislation, we see that—

Why don’t you sit down and give us a chance?

—settle down, Mr Quinn—it is a badge of honour to be considered, in this respect. These gang names are merely names, but if we think that the only things that matter to gangs are their names and their patches, then we will never come to terms with gang activity in this area.

I am really surprised the ACT Party is voting for this part of the bill. Surely after everything that Rodney Hide and Heather Roy said at the time of the first reading of this bill, this is really where the rubber hits the road for ACT. Do the ACT members, who have voted for this legislation all the way through this Committee stage, really truly believe that this is going to change anything? ACT is the law and order party—it is tough on law and order, so we would think it would be interested in a definition of gangs, gang insignia, and areas gangs will be banned from. Does the ACT Party really believe that this bill will make a difference? As my colleague Pete Hodgson pointed out earlier, there is the bigger issue of whether a libertarian party really believes that people should be told they cannot wear a particular T-shirt. We would think, given some of the things ACT members were saying during the Electoral Finance Act debate, that that would be something they were against.

Or a yellow jacket.

Or a yellow jacket, for example. Do they really think that banning colours, or anything that might be construed as a gang thing, is something the ACT Party should be supporting? I am very interested to hear what the member Roger Douglas has to say on this issue, because it seems to me to go against everything that party has always claimed that it stands for but apparently—clearly—does not.

Only for some.

That is quite correct; as my colleague says, only for some. I think we need to be very careful about this legislation. It is full of loopholes—absolutely full of loopholes. If the bill does not have perverse outcomes, it will be completely avoided by the people we are deliberately trying to catch with it. We have other legislation on the statute book. The proceeds of crime legislation should do far, far more to tackle gangs than this ever will. Why is that not being advanced?

Turei METIRIA TUREI (Green) Link to this

I have an amendment to clause 4 in my name that looks to explicitly ensure that tattoos are not included in the definition of gang insignia. I see that Chester Borrows has a Supplementary Order Paper doing the same thing, and I expect that whichever of them goes first will pass.

I am pleased that Mr Borrows has put forward that Supplementary Order Paper, because we have been particularly concerned that by not excluding tattoos from the definition of gang insignia, Māori, in particular, who have a tradition—an ancient, thousand-year history—of tā moko, will be targeted unjustly by the council and the police through the use of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill.

This is an area where I find Labour’s position on the bill difficult to understand. Notwithstanding that Labour members have said they are opposing the legislation, if we look at the select committee report we see that there is no indication whatsoever that Labour opposes it. The select committee included New Zealand First, Labour, and National members. In particular, Labour and New Zealand First members were concerned to make sure that tattoos were included in the definition of gang insignia, thereby increasing the risk of prejudice and discrimination, particularly against Māori. It would be nice to get some clarity from Labour about what its actual position is on this issue, because it is not clear from the bill and it is a bit difficult to get a sense of where that party is really going.

There is a real issue here about the definition of a public place. I said earlier that nothing prevents a council, essentially, from being able to declare the entirety of the Wanganui district area a specified place, and therefore as subject to this law. Mr Garrett pointed to a provision in clause 5—which I am sure we will get to—that states that the council is not supposed to do that, but nothing actually stops it from effectively doing it.

The definition of a public place includes any area that is under the control of the council, whether or not that area is being used, or is open to being used, by the public. The definition in clause 4 also includes “a road, whether or not the road is under the control of the Council;”. The Wanganui district area is a very large area, and a particularly rural area, so there will be lots and lots of places that the council will not necessarily know about. The council may provide a set of rules that essentially covers the main thoroughfares of the city and the region—the areas that are most likely to be populated—miss out just a few individual roads, but be covered by the provisions of this bill and not therefore breach clause 5, as Mr Garrett read out. But the council would have effectively closed off the entire district.

There is no indication in the legislation of the consequences for the council if it were to close off the entire district. The bill does not state which parts of the council rules would then not be in effect, or whether all of the rules that breach that provision would not then be valid. It does not state that. It does not state how the determination is to be made or who will make it. I know the making of by-laws is restricted, to some extent, and there are controls around that, but nothing in this legislation indicates what they are or what the sanctions might be. So my position—that this bill will allow the Wanganui District Council to effectively close off the entire region and make it subject to this legislation—still stands, because there is nothing that will prevent the council from doing so in a practical or practicable way.

That is a very serious concern, especially when it is placed alongside the power of the police to stop and search vehicles. The provisions, in the main, are about the display of gang insignia in a public place—a public display—so we can understand the logic behind the provision. We might disagree with it, but we can understand the reasoning behind it. But when we start talking about the police being able to stop and search the cars of people who may or may not be displaying gang insignia inside the car, which is a private place—it is not a public place that is subject to the council rules—we ask, then, where in the rules that power to stop cars and search people for gang insignia makes sense, given that the purpose is to stop the display of gang insignia in a public place.

A car is not a public place. The police do not have to know that there is a display of gang insignia in a public place by a person who is currently in a car; they have only to suspect that display. So they can stop the car on any grounds, and what they will actually do in practice—and what Māori know they will do in practice—is stop a car full of Māori. It does not matter what those Māori have been doing—[Interruption]—and Paul Quinn knows that that will be the case.

Turei METIRIA TUREI Link to this

You can call me Paul.

Well, I have to use the member’s proper name; I am just trying to be well-behaved. The member knows that that will be the case. The Māori members in this House know that that will be the case. The police will simply stop every car that has a significant number of Māori people in it, using this provision, in order to search them. The police do not have to have reasonable cause to stop and search the car; they have only to suspect that someone may or may not be wearing gang insignia, which is a very broad description. There is the kind of obvious gang insignia we all think about, but what about something like a swastika, for example, which actually has multiple uses and multiple meanings? I understand that for a Hindu a swastika is a symbol of love, harmony, intelligence, and strength. But if the council decides that a swastika as a single symbol is a gang insignia, then anybody can be stopped in his or her car by the police because the police have decided they want to search that car for a swastika.

Members might want to suggest that perhaps it would be only skinny, bald guys with big boots who have swastikas. Buddhists do not have a lot of hair. There is just no way that a rule can be set around the display of these things that makes any practical sense, that is properly enforceable, and that is sufficiently constrained so the rule actually meets its purpose. That is where this bill fails the process of making good law that is enforceable, that has a sound basis, and that we know will be enforced in a way that makes sense for the community and deals with the issues in it.

Of course, gang violence is a big issue, but this bill, as we have heard, will not do anything about it. What it does do, which is even worse, is create a great deal of uncertainty in the community about colours, which will lead potentially to a great deal more violence around the wearing of colours. It gives the council enormous powers to outlaw symbols and make their wearing a criminal offence. Some symbols are ancient symbols that have multiple levels of meaning, but the council’s actions will be based on its own prejudiced views about what those symbols might mean and about the people who carry them.

The bill gives the police extraordinary power, which they do not have anywhere else in the country, or even under existing criminal law, to stop and search people in a car whom they suspect potentially of displaying gang insignia, thus giving the police the power to search that car and those people for a great deal of other kinds of things, justly or unjustly.

A large number of court cases will come out of the use of that power, in particular, because it is such a significant extension of the police powers of search without warrant. I know that Mr Borrows has a lot of experience in the police and in the law. He understands how these things are put out in practice. I am sure he knows that police are out there who will stop and search cars full of Māori simply because they can, and in the Wanganui area this bill will make it much, much easier for that to happen. It will lead to perfectly ordinary, probably Māori, men, who would otherwise be entirely law abiding, becoming extremely frustrated and angry with the police, and being subject to extraordinary police harassment for no reason other than that they might be wearing a red jumper, a black jumper, or a yellow jumper inside a car full of other Māori wearing other kinds of coloured clothes.

That is not the kind of law this Parliament should be passing; it is very bad law and very unenforceable law. It will cause enormous problems in the community itself and create higher levels of violence between communities, and higher levels of prejudice, thereby increasing police harassment. I urge this Committee to oppose this legislation for all of those reasons, and for the other reasons we have heard today.

JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) Link to this

Moana Mackey wants to know whether the ACT Party truly believes that the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill will make a difference. The answer is a categorical yes. If we did not believe that this bill would make a difference, we would not be supporting it, and I would not be supporting it.

Moana Mackey talked about ACT as being a libertarian party. She may not realise that there is a party called Libertarianz, which stood at the last election. We are not that party; we are the ACT Party. We are a party of choice; we stand for choice. In this case, the ACT Party will be supporting a bill put forward by the people of Wanganui. They want this bill, and that is one of the reasons we have considered it and will be supporting it. I say to the sponsor, Mr Borrows, that if 58 members of the National Party vote for this bill, it will be passed into law.

What did Mr Hodgson have to say? He said that the ACT Party is consistent. It might be “consistently wrong”, in Mr Hodgson’s words, but at least it is consistent. Well, I ask Mr Hodgson to cast his mind back to last month. He and his party voted to repeal the Electoral Finance Act, a law that was passed by the Labour Government despite widespread opposition from people throughout this country. What did Labour do less than 15 months after it had passed that Act into law? It voted for its repeal. I tell Mr Hodgson that that is a very smart move. He talked about the ACT Party being consistent; well, if any party has been inconsistent on an issue in the last 15 months it has been his party. Thank you.

Mackey MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

There is no need to look around before giving the call, Mr Chair; no one else is jumping to his or her feet. Mr Quinn over there has been very vocal, but apparently is not confident enough to stand up and give a speech in this Chamber and actually put his words on the record.

That was a very, very interesting speech from Mr Boscawen. It was basically the exact opposite of the speech that his colleague David Garrett gave on the purpose clause of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. Mr Garrett said that this was a bad bill and it would not do anything.

He is supporting it. He said he was voting for it.

He did not actually say in his speech that he was supporting it. We had to ask him afterwards whether he meant he was supporting it. He said yes, but members should watch this space. Mr Garrett pointed out how bad this bill was. For Mr Boscawen to now come to the Chamber and say that ACT thoroughly supports this bill, and would not be voting for it if it did not totally support it, very much contradicts what his colleague said. I suggest that maybe they need to talk to each other a little more before they come to the Chamber and give their position to the Committee. They have shown the complete inner turmoil within the ACT Party about this legislation. The five ACT MPs in this Chamber cannot even get it right, so how will they get it right amongst their members across the country? We know that the members across the country are writing to the five ACT Party members and telling them that they do not want them to vote for this bill, and that they will leave the ACT Party if they vote for it.

I will respond to some questions put by my Green colleague Metiria Turei about Labour’s position on this legislation. I apologise for perhaps not being clear and not clearly outlining our position. Labour will not be supporting the amendments put up by Ms Turei and Mr Borrows, for the reasons outlined in the commentary on the bill: “We are concerned that this might cause an increase in the use of tattoos by gang members to intimidate the public. We do not consider that every tattoo should be covered by this legislation; it should capture only those that denote membership of, affiliation with, or support for a gang.” We think this is a stupid bill and we will not be voting for it.

The Labour members of the Law and Order Committee worked constructively and worked very hard to try to make a very bad bill as good as it could be. The people of Wanganui feel very strongly about this bill. It went to a select committee. We all have an obligation to work as hard as we can at the select committee, which, of course, is where a lot of real work takes place and where a lot of the silly antics that we see all the time on TV do not happen. We feel that if we are going to ban gang insignia, then we really cannot leave out tattoos, otherwise that would tell someone to take off their T-shirt and get a facial tattoo because a tattoo is the one type of gang insignia that is not covered by this bill. We stand by that.

We do not think this bill will work, at all. We do not think it should pass. We know now that Mr John Boscawen thinks that this bill is great, that the ACT Party should support it, and that it fits in. I am sorry that I called his party “libertarian”; I meant “liberal”. It was a slip of the tongue, although I have heard many ACT Party members call themselves libertarians, but that is another issue. We know on the record that John Boscawen absolutely thinks this is a great bill. He thinks it is wonderful and fantastic. He now needs to have a conversation with his colleague Mr Garrett, who said exactly the opposite about this legislation. Mr Garrett, of course, was the star law and order candidate—

You said that before.