4. RON MARK (NZ First) Link to this
to the Minister of Police
Further to her answer provided last week stating the estimated total number of patched gang members and associates is between 3,000 and 3,500, what is the latest estimate of the number of gang affiliates which the New Zealand Police estimated in 2002 to be 21,882?
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) Link to this
The figures I advised the House of came from the New Zealand Police. The estimated affiliate figures of 21,882 in 2002 are likely to be the result of a broader definition, including hang-arounds, hangers-on, and wannabes. As I said in my answer yesterday, and last week, the New Zealand Police advised me that determining accurate gang membership figures is challenging, but it is more important that the police respond to gang-related activity rather than just count it.
Does she accept that, given the 2002 figure quoted by the previous Minister of Police included “major gangs only”, the total number of gang affiliates, including youth gangs, is likely to be much higher; and does she agree with Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Gutry’s statement Inside New Zealand last Thursday that for every patched member there are probably five or 10 associates of the gang?
I think that the most important word in the comment from Mark Gutry was “probably”. That is because the New Zealand Police has difficulty in counting patched members, affiliates, associates, and so on for the very reasons I set out in this House last week, and that answer stands.
Chester BorrowsDoes she stand by her statement in the House yesterday that over 26,000 separate charges were placed before the courts in 2007 against persons identified as having gang connections; if so, how many gang members who have been before the courts in the past year, such as those who allegedly cut a swathe through a Hawke’s Bay party with machetes and baseball bats last weekend, have effectively been given a “get out of jail free” card because of the delay in bringing the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill into the House?
I stand by the 26,000 figure that I gave yesterday. That is the figure provided to me by my officials and I have no reason to doubt it. They have been taken before the courts and those who received punishment received the appropriate punishment. I think it is supposition from the member to say that they would have got different penalties. I think we would need to know what each of the cases was.
Does she agree with former police detective Mike Sabin that police should dedicate as many resources to drug offences as to road policing, and why does the Asian crime unit have only five staff when it is widely known that most of the imported methamphetamine and precursors are being sourced from family and business connections in south China?
Because the Asian crime unit is but one of five units within the New Zealand Police that work on such issues. As I said to the member last week, police do not work just from a unit perspective; they work across all parts of the New Zealand Police. They work internationally. They have offices overseas in terms of work with overseas countries, particularly in south China. The way to tackle the drug issue—which is a serious issue; I agree with the member in that respect—is not by having five staff in an Asian crime unit but by having those members working with other members of the New Zealand Police and working internationally.
What confidence should the people of New Zealand have in her Government’s ability to protect them from gang violence and intimidation when it has such a naive view of the scale and depth of the gang problem in their communities and when the police still do not accept the need for a nationally led and nationally organised assault on gangs, run by the commissioner himself?
I disagree with the member. First of all, this Government takes gangs seriously. Secondly, I have a lot of confidence in the police and in the work they are undertaking every day of the week—much of it unseen by the public of New Zealand, but certainly led from the top in New Zealand. I also have confidence in the new Organised and Financial Crime Agency that this Government is establishing, which transfers over powers that were held only by the Serious Fraud Office into an agency that will have broader powers to be able to fight organised crime, much of which is committed by gang members.