McAnulty Kieran; Rurawhe AdrianKIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. As much as the member in charge of this bill wants to make it such this is not a debate on whether gangs are good or bad. No one in this House is saying that gangs are good. Everyone is recognising that gangs do behaviour and cause harm in our communities and nobody supports that. We recognise that there are many people over various generations for decades in this country who have suffered under the behaviour of gangs. The question is: how do we stop that? We don't stop that by making cynical political moves that are trying to dog-whistle to people to say and position one party against another as soft on crime and tough on crime. No party in this House is soft on crime. But what this side of the House recognises is that we can take a punitive approach like we have over decades in this country and nothing will change. What was it Einstein said? The definition of stupidity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Take a look at the United States and see how high incarceration rates and high penalties—as high as the death penalty—are stopping crime over there. It makes no difference. The approach that we need to take in this country is to understand what drives people into gangs and to invest in programmes that stop people entering and stop people staying in gangs. Now I say this as the member of Parliament for the Wairarapa electorate and in the northern part of that electorate is Central Hawke's Bay where there was a programme funded by Government departments targeting gangs getting people off drugs and getting them out of the cycle of anti-social and criminal behaviour. There are strict conditions upon that funding. There are regular audits and regular reviews and a key condition of that funding is that if it is not delivered then the next quarter's funding of that I believe two years of funding will not be delivered. They have to report back to Government departments. Now I'll admit when I first found out about it because I had no context—it was a local journalist that rung up and said What do you think of the $2.85 million that was given to a gang?" I said "I'm not in a position to comment on that because I don't know anything about it." But I'll admit in the absence of any context or any information it seemed a bit unusual. However when I realised and when I was informed that this was a programme that was based on one that the previous National Government implemented in conjunction with the Salvation Army focused on gangs that was effective that worked I thought actually this makes sense because here we have an opportunity to support a programme that clearly—or one might think—has bipartisan support that is based on a programme that worked that targets those that are in gangs that has proven results. Why wouldn't we want to support that? Why wouldn't we want to support a programme that the Police support that Corrections support and that the Ministry of Education I believe support? There's a long list of Government departments that actually know what they're talking about that aren't interested in dog-whistling and aren't interested in petty politics and trying to position people on people's lives and livelihoods. They're actually interested in results and that is what this Government is interested in. If this bill was to focus on rehabilitation I think we'd support it but it doesn't. It focuses on judgment and it focuses on spitefulness and pettiness. What it says is "We're going to teach the gangs a lesson. We're going to tell them that they're naughty and we're not going to talk to them and we're just going to make them more ostracised and more isolated in society. That'll teach them. Because then they'll stop what they're doing. They'll take a look in the mirror and they'll say 'They've stopped recognising us. I'm going to go get a degree.'" It's not how it works. It's absolute nonsense. It is based on judgment and I think frankly it is based on hatred. They are judging people for entering into circumstances that they don't understand. They don't take the time to appreciate the fact that there are vulnerable people in our communities that see no hope. They don't think they'll get a job they don't think they'll get education and here we have a vulnerable person being lured in by the promise of prestige and money. They are parasites on our most vulnerable. I do not condone in any way what gangs do in our community but let's be pragmatic. Let's focus on what needs to be done and vote this bill out.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Simeon Brown—five minutes in response."