Little Andrew: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9972. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill and to add my voice to those who say this is a complete waste of our time. This is a bill for the inadequate and frankly the flaccid and the armchair toughies who sit back in the comfort of places like this to talk at length about the horror of the gangs without actually wanting to do anything meaningful about it. This will do nothing. This does nothing. It is cosmetic. It is literally cosmetic. It is about dealing with the outward appearance of a gang member. It does nothing about the underlying issues and realities of gangs.We all know about the reality of gangs and if there is anybody in this House who knows more than Mr Sabin about gangs I would be most surprised. He has been at the forefront of the war on the drugs that have been peddled and pushed and run by gangs for many many years. He knows the insidious effect that many gang members have. He knows as does Mr Mitchell that the primary reason we have gangs and that they behave the way they do is that they are a criminal enterprise. They are an issue that we ought to take seriously. They are an issue about which we need proper laws effective laws and effective enforcement. They are also an issue about which we need other effective policies too because gangs flourish and come into existence at times of poverty deprivation alienation and disillusionment. We actually need measures about those sorts of things as well to go hand in hand with effective criminal response and criminal enforcement. But this bill will do nothing. This will do nothing for any of those things.Mr Prosser talks about eradicating gangs for ever. Well politicians have been talking like that in this country for the last 40 years—about getting rid of gangs about eliminating them banging them all up locking them up and treating them in horrific sorts of ways. That continued of course until we had a Prime Minister named Rob Muldoon who decided as part of his style of political leadership to offer the hand of support engagement and understanding. He provided work for gangs to do with State support. And suddenly it made a difference. Some gangs actually went down a path of the straight and narrow. But since then gangs have become a repository of criminal wrongdoing and criminal enterprises and they serve no useful purpose by and large. So when we think about effective remedies for the gang problem and those who would goaround intimidating bullying acting like thugs and upsetting the citizenry and the good burghers of Whanganui or of Leigh or any of other part of the country then what would we do? The last thing we would think about doing is taking their jackets off them. That is not going to change anything as it did not change anything in Whanganui when it had its gang patch prohibition. All that did was send the gangs out of the centre of the city. They just turned up somewhere else and carried on in their same usual ways. It did not change the existence or the presence of gangs and it did not change their conduct or behaviour.So what will this bill do? If this law can be effectively enforced—and there is real doubt that it can because of the definitions and because of the vague applications and the vague boundaries that are now defined within it—what is it going to do? It will shift the problem round. It will not address the underlying issue of gangs. The only thing that the bill as reported back from the Law and Order Committee does—the principal change—is to add some Government premises foremost amongst them being police stations because apparently this bill contemplates the real possibility that police at the moment cannot manage their own premises to keep gangs out of them. Well that is just patently ridiculous. That illustrates how silly this bill has become that the principal change to it as a result of the select committee is to say that police stations must be covered as one of the Government premises. Well that is plainly ridiculous. The other principal addition is the adding of the letters “MC” after some of the named gangs because suddenly the sponsor of the bill has discovered that all these gangs that were listed in the original bill are actually motorcycle gangs so we had better add something that stands for “motorcycle” after it. Most of them will be motorcycle gangs; some of them will not be. Some of them will be other things. But then there is a catch-all change to the bill that says that anything that kind of looks like it is named this way will be covered by it. The other interesting aspect to the bill I note is the power of the police to give chase to somebody wearing a nominated gang patch. In order to give chase and before they can pull over a gang patch - wearing citizen the police officer or the constable him or herself has to “… be wearing a uniform or distinctive cap hat or helmet with a badge of authority …”. That might as well be paraphrased into the word “insignia”. We need police insignia on the police officer before they can give chase and stop the citizen who is wearing a gang-patched garment on their person.That illustrates again the fruitless nature of this piece of legislation the fruitless nature of this bill and it illustrates again that the Government whether its members are bringing members’ bills in their personal capacity or on behalf of the Government itself—actually if we had a Government that was serious about the gang issue we would have a Minister here bringing legislation that would deal with the problem. But the mere fact that this is a member’s bill being brought in on a members’ day an ineffective piece of legislation being brought in for ineffective purposes on an issue that is actually quite important illustrates how serious or not this Government takes this issue and issues associated with it. If this was a Government serious about dealing with a gang issue not only would we have effective and effectively enforceable criminal legislation that would deal with it but we would have a Government that was dealing with the underlying social issues that drive people to gangs and to gang activity. We would have a set of criminal legislation that would deal with gangs embarking on criminal enterprises—the sort of legislation that the Hon Phil Goff introduced when he was a Minister of Justice legislation that deals with the power of gangs and the wealth and the assets they accumulate and starts taking it off them not meaningless gestures like this bill which deals with the clothes that they wear because that does not change their behaviour.This bill does not change them congregating and aggregating as citizens with a criminal motive and a criminal purpose. It will do nothing about that. It deals with the clothes that they wear. Well that is not effective at all. And then it requires the police and the Minister to be constantly in touch with gang activity and what gangs are around because this legislation deals with nominated gangs. If there is a new gang—and they do spring up from time to time—then the Minister has to seek an Order in Council to add whatever new gang there is to the list and the Minister has to be satisfied that they are a gang and that they are criminal and do all this sort of stuff. The Minister has to be satisfied that the information and the evidence are there before they can seek their Order in Council. This adds an entire rigmarole to deal with a cosmetic problem rather than the real problem that underpins it.A Government that was serious about criminal activity the criminal fraternity and criminal enterprise would bring a piece of legislation through a Minister who was genuinely concerned about it. It would bring a piece of legislation that was directed to dealing with criminal activity and giving the police the means and the powers to deal with gangs not to just take their patch off them chase them because they have got a patch on or arrest them because they wear a gang patch. That will do nothing because one of the other badges of honour—if I could use that pun in this context—of gang members is to accumulate a criminal record to cause the police inconvenience and to draw themselves to the attention of the police force them to take them through the courts and do all those sorts of things.This bill will do nothing for the gang problem. It will be another feather in their cap if they are caught by it and they cause inconvenience and an unnecessary waste of resources for the police. It will be another feather in their cap. They will brag about it talk about it and boast about it but it will not fix the gang problem it will not fix criminal activity and it will not stop the criminal enterprises that are gangs. So that is why we are opposed to this bill. It is a meaningless gesture that is on an issue that actually ought to be taken seriously and to have something serious done about it. We are opposed to the bill.