Paul TamathaTAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe. I rise this evening to reaffirm our opposition to the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill. The main reasons for that are first that it completely fails to address the reasons that gangs were created in the first place including the State's role in that creation and political choices that lead to our communities living in poverty which fuels the presence of and membership into gangs. The second reason is because the surveillance-and-suppression approach is ideologically driven and isn't informed by evidence—instead it is driven by political expediency and it has been completely designed to win votes as opposed to making our community safer. The third reason that we oppose this bill is because giving police more powers means an increased interaction between marginalised communities and the criminal justice system.These tools—the non-consorting orders and the dispersal notices and adding being a gang member to the aggravating factors within sentencing—will disproportionately impact Māori as we have seen in other jurisdictions around the world where indigenous people have borne the brunt of tools like this.So last week we had the release of the report into the royal commission inquiry into abuse in State care detailing the abuse of 200000 children by the State and faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999. [Holds up front page of newspaper] This was the person who was on the cover when that dropped last week. This is Eugene Ryder; he came and spoke to us at select committee about what this bill means to him and how he found his way into a gang in the first place.I want to make it really clear that not every person that was abused in State care became a gang member but we know that almost every gang member has been traumatised abused raped or tormented within State care which sows the seeds for a lifetime of shame violence addiction and fear. The link between abuse by the State and the formation of gangs in New Zealand is undeniable. I spoke about this connection in the first reading of this bill and now we have the largest royal commission inquiry that our country has ever seen showing us exactly where gangs came from.I want to pull from the submission that Eugene Ryder made to the Justice Committee. This is what he said: A lot of reference has been made already to the formation—the why—gangs exist. I was a State ward I was abused while I was in care and I found solace in the Black Power community here in Wellington. The reason I found solace with them is because we shared similar if not exact experiences within State care. At the time there was the people that were put in charge on behalf of the State to care for us. They were raping us. What we learnt from them was violence—extreme violence."That's echoed by Alf who was spoken to by Aaron Smale who is a member of the Mongrel Mob. He was passed around different care institutions like Epuni Boys' Home until he was put into Lake Alice psychiatric hospital where he was stripped naked subjected to horrendous racism drugged and raped by both the staff at the institution and also by adult patients within the institution. Alf would be made unconscious by drugs and when he was an adult he would black out and take out his rage on those around him because he was taught that violence is the only chance that he has at surviving.So within State care children learnt that violence can and should be used as the main tool that they use to navigate life. They learnt that if they spoke up and tried to communicate using their words that they would not be believed and this would lead to future harm. They learnt that you must always be on edge and on the defence. They learnt that authorities and institutions were not to be trusted because those who were meant to care for them abused them—and when they ran away the police would bring them back into the care of their abusers. They learnt that there was safety and strength in numbers and that in order to feel safer they should join a group.With hundreds of thousands of children enduring unspeakable torture and abuse who could they turn to for comfort? They couldn't afford counselling or therapy; they can't trust the institutions set up to support them. They could only turn to each other. That right there is where gangs come from. Understanding that connection between the abuse in State care and the formation of gangs is important because abuse of children in State care still happens today. If you don't want to see gangs then we need to make sure that children are not being taught that violence is the only tool that they can use in order to navigate their lives.I want to talk now about the ineffectiveness of gang-busting policy. There's been some really good articles that have come out over the weekend about this from a whole bunch of academics within the criminology space. They've come out and they've said that the Government is employing an ideological basis for their policy and that cracking down on gangs and the approach of suppression and surveillance has never worked. It's been the only approach that we've tried for the last few decades and it has not decreased gang membership at all. How is it that prisons are the number one place where people are able to recruit and increase gang membership? There are no patches worn in prison so eliminating their visual presence in some communities is not going to reduce their membership at all.This bill is actually quite useless because all of the powers that are in the bill—they already exist. So gang activities that cause issues in public are already an offence under the Summary Offences Act 1981 including disorderly or offensive behaviour and associating with those convicted of theft violence or drug-related offending. Gang patches are already banned from all public buildings and structures through the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Act 2013. If arresting our way out of the problem and eliminating the visual presence of gangs worked we wouldn't have them anymore because that has been in our legislation for more than 10 years.Finally I want to talk about the use of some of these tools within the bill. We know that where non-consorting and dispersal orders have been used in other jurisdictions they have been disproportionately used on indigenous people. So I spoke to Senator David Shoebridge over in New South Wales who sent me this report which was about the use of non-consorting orders in Sydney. Despite the fact that indigenous people only make up 2 percent of the general population there the non-consorting orders have been used between 50 and 75 percent in all of their jurisdictions within New South Wales. This just contributes to the over-surveillance over-policing harsher sentencing of Māori communities. It does nothing to make our communities safer—at all.One thing I do want to say is I want to encourage the Government to speak to gang leaders. This is something that I've been talking about for a while now. There was some refusal from Ministers like Minister Mitchell who refused to meet with gang members. But I think he's coming around to the idea that if you want to influence communities that are already hard to reach you need to go and talk to the leaders of those communities. I know that Minister Stanford had a meeting with Eugene today and that he will be able to assist you in implementing all 138 recommendations of the royal commission.But they're just normal people. Go and have a chat with them. I think you'll find they're quite nice. They will manaaki you—hopefully—and you will probably learn a lot of lessons about if you want to reduce the patch. Those conversations are already happening—Samantha Hayes did a really great article visiting Whakatāne; visiting the Black Power there and how they're potentially moving away from the patch. But talk to the communities rather than creating a hostile environment between gangs and police who have to enforce these rules and then we might make some traction towards eliminating the presence of gangs.But nothing fuels gang membership and the presence of gangs and the activities of gangs like poverty. Poverty and misery is where gangs thrive. So if you don't want them to exist then let's start by enforcing all of the recommendations in the royal commission. Let's listen to people who have got experience and respect within the gang community and work with them to figure out how we can make our communities safer and better. Kia ora."