Little Andrew: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11888. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):It is a pleasure to take what will now be my final call on this part of the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. I just want to respond to some comments made by Dr Coleman the previous speaker. You see here is the thing: no one on this side of the Chamber has argued nor would we argue that gangs should have some sort of free rein over schools or hospitals or any other Government office. No one has argued that. We do not need to argue that.If he wants arguments about sensible solutions to real problems then Dr Coleman could do a lot worse than actually sitting there listening to us for a moment and hearing what the real problem is. The real problem is not the presence of gang patches and gang insignia; it is the fact that we have criminal enterprises some of them tied up with gangs. Their members wear whatever garments they wear—some of them do not wear any gang patches—but they are still tied up with groups and they are still involved in criminal enterprises. If we had a Government that was genuinely interested in dealing with the issues of crime and bringing to justice those who would commit crimes against those in our communities then it would not be wasting its time our time and the time of this Committee on legislation like this. It would be addressing the real issues the real drivers of crime. It would be dealing with the people who bring to their activities bad motives poor motives evil motives and it would be addressing those issues. It would be looking at those people who are driven into the gangs through poverty through hardship or through whatever misguided sense of membership or belonging that they have or want to have and it would address those issues. But this is not a Government that wants to do that. This is a Government that is about blaming others blaming people blaming everybody else rather than taking the time and the effort to come up with real solutions.If I were in business driving a white van around the streets I would want to know that I was driving through safe communities and safe streets. I would want to know that I had a Government in charge that was committed to dealing with those issues and putting in place those measures that were genuinely about dealing with issues of crime and ensuring that those who commit crime are properly brought to justice. I would be equally concerned about making sure that those who are brought to justice are then handled through our criminal justice system in a way that actually has a better chance of fixing the problem.That is not what this bill does. This is about cosmetics. As everything about this bill—which is about gang insignia and gang patches—suggests it is just cosmetics. It is not about dealing with people and it is not about dealing with the issue and that is why we are opposed to it. That is why we will continue to oppose silly measures proposing silly solutions to problems that do not exist.If we want to deal with people who are on premises and should not be there we already have the means to deal with that as the Napier District Court has shown and asmany public organisations are showing. But if we wanted to stop criminal elements turning up in public places we would not be stopping at public buildings or Government buildings; we would be dealing with criminal elements turning up to playgrounds turning up to beaches turning up to barbecue places and turning up on our streets. We will deal with that in the next part and we will deal with the measures that are there for police to chase these people. We will be dealing with real measures to stop this. This bill does not do that. That is why we are opposed to it.I know that Dr Coleman has listened intently to this and I see now the look on his face. He now realises of course that this legislation does not go anywhere near the sorts of problems that he spelt out and that we need to have fixed. I know he understands that no one in this Committee is arguing that we want to have gang members marauding around our schools and our hospitals. I know he understands that we are all opposed to that and I know now that he understands that we want real measures to deal with the real problems not just window dressing.