Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I speak on this bill the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill which the National Party will support but it's a bill from a Government that is tired and rotten as we've seen tonight with a replacement of a Minister that has reached new lows in terms of ministerial activity. We've just heard from the current police Minister and I hope and pray that her career doesn't end in the same way as her predecessor because we in this country have come to expect certain kinds of behaviour from Ministers and we haven't seen that tonight. And what we've seen from this Government instead has been the tolerance of low standards of conduct and—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Goldsmith the bill please. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Mr Speaker. And so what we've also seen from this Government is a very muddled approach towards crime. And so this bill the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill is a useful piece of legislation that does some things that will make it easier for the police to do their job and to hold particularly gang members to account. It does bring in particular offences about discharging a firearm in a public place. Yes OK that's useful and it gives some warranted search powers for weapons in responding to gang conflict. Notably the Government hasn't done what it should have done in terms of making it easier for police to have warrantless powers to search for weapons and cars as a general course of event for gang members as the National Party has suggested. But it's useful. They've expanded the range of factors that can be dealt with in terms of vehicle empowerment and we've heard a long diatribe from the previous speaker on that and it's given the police powers to seize cash if it's gathered in certain circumstances. So all those things yes will make a modest improvement. But the problem is that the gang members are sitting out here and they're looking at this Government the Labour Government—this tired and rotten Government—they're looking at them and saying Well what is their attitude towards us?" And they can't work it out because every now and again they pass a law like this which makes their life a bit more difficult but the other half of the time they're making their life easier; they're giving them money to do drug rehabilitation programmes or they're passing—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Goldsmith let's help the gang members out by talking about the bill so they know what it's about. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well thank you Mr Speaker but I'm giving the context for this bill and I'm perfectly entitled to give the context to this bill and what I want the people of New Zealand to understand is that this bill is in a context and it is in a context of a muddled Government when it comes to law and order. They're not sending clear messages to the gangs which they are saying and the Minister of Justice said in her speech only three or four speeches ago are the target of this legislation—to make their lives more difficult in terms of the criminal activity. The point I'm making is that while they are doing that on one hand on the other hand they're passing legislation such as repealing the three-strikes legislation which reduces sentences for our worst repeat offenders. And so people are confused as to what the purpose of this Government is. And at the same time as they're passing this legislation which says that gangs can't move and convert large sums of cash they're also giving money to gang associates to run meth rehabilitation programmes. So it's confusing and people can't understand what the purpose of this Government is. And it's not surprising that over the last five years we've seen an increase in crime; we've seen an increase in violent crime. We've seen these very strange conflicting trends in our justice figures over the last five years where we've seen the increase in violent crime going up like this and we've seen the number of people going to prison going down like that. People can't work that out. They look at it and they say "Well what's going on? Why is the only clear target in the justice sector from this Government a 30 percent reduction in the number of people in prison irrespective of what's going on on the street and irrespective of the level of crime on our streets they want to reduce the prison population?"So it's all very well to pass legislation like this which does a few things. It creates new offences for discharging a firearm in a public place and the Minister will stand up and she'll say "I'm tough on crime. Aren't I tough on crime? I've introduced this legislation that has a new warranted search power for weapons when there is a gang conflict. Aren't I tough on crime?" but then on the other hand the Government is doing half a dozen things which make it easier for our worst repeat offenders to carry on their work and to create new victims. That's why we're willing to support this legislation but we're not at all convinced that this Government has a clear and coherent set of policies on law and order. And that's why the National Government promises to restore law and order in this country in October when we get a chance and hopefully there'll be a by-election before that and we will be able to run those issues out before the people of Napier because that's what this country needs and deserves. Thank you Mr Speaker."