Mitchell Mark; Dean JacquiHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Speaker. Firstly I want to acknowledge Karen Chhour and the urgent debate that she brought to this House today in relation to the abuse that was happening inside Oranga Tamariki. She spoke from the heart. She spoke from her own experiences. And as her tears fell on the floor in this House I was expecting the Minister responsible for Oranga Tamariki to honour her and at least stand and make some sort of an effort to respond to what is an extremely serious situation. Instead he chose to stand and make cheap political shots at the Opposition. Totally inappropriate and I thought much higher of Kelvin Davis and I expected much more from him. I want to talk about the situation that we've had in Ōpōtiki recently with the Mongrel Mob deciding that they could come out in numbers and take over the town. I acknowledge the comments that were made by the mayor there and I acknowledge the comments that were made by iwi leaders but I personally believe that the people of Ōpōtiki don't want to be known as a gang town. They don't want to be known for gang violence. And by the way we don't have two standards of citizenship in this country where one group gets to blatantly break the laws of our country when law-abiding Kiwis have to keep adhering to those laws. The police say that there was an adequate response. I completely utterly reject that. When you have got gang members taking over public spaces and public roads when you've got the police taking resources away from the communities that they should be protecting to do traffic control and closing roads that members of the public should have free access to that is not a success. When you have the justice Minister standing up and saying that of the eight vehicles that were stopped—eight vehicles; there were hundreds of gang vehicles involved in this procession—five of them had firearms in them that's got to be a huge red flag. How many other firearms were actually part of that convoy? How many illegal firearms were still out in the public? There were two arrests. If we have reached a point in this country where our police stand up and say that's a great result then we have plumbed the depths. Because in New Zealand we should put a line in the sand and we should be saying Gangs you don't get to come out and take over public spaces. You don't get to intimidate members of the public. You don't get special rules." No one else when they're mourning a loved one or having a wake or having a funeral—no other group in this country gets the sort of response that they get in terms of traffic control roads closed negotiation around behaviour what they can do and what they can't do. And by the way half these negotiations that take place with the police and the gangs they immediately go out and break the rules. So let's not stand in here and pretend that what we've seen is acceptable and normalised and we should accept that as a country. It's the complete opposite. I was very pleased this week to see that we made a new announcement around aggravating factors for gang members. Let's get this straight. If you're a gang member with the policy that we've put forward if you commit a crime then it's going to be an aggravating factor. The current law is so weak that you have to prove that they're part of a criminal group and that's why it's not used. Hon Willie Jackson: It's already there Mark—it's already there.Hon MARK MITCHELL: These guys don't understand it—they don't understand it. They say "No it's already on the books." It's not on the books. If it was on the books it'd be getting used. We've stated very clearly that if you're a gang member now if you're a member of a gang it doesn't matter what crime you commit whether it be some domestic violence whether it be assaulting someone—if you're a gang member it's an aggravating factor. It's a new piece of policy and it's a good piece of policy and it'll continue to put pressure on gang members.I'll tell you why. We don't want gang members in New Zealand. We want to get rid of gang members. Yes I admit—I concede that they've been here for decades. Harry Tam—Harry Tam was on the TV this week. Harry Tam's got some genuine leadership skills. He's got some say inside the gangs. Why doesn't he take a stand and say "I want you to leave."? If he comes and says to me "We'll have a meeting. Let's sit down and talk." I'm happy to do that. But the conversation's got to be this: how do we help how do we work to allow your gang members to leave the gang and rejoin society? Because very sadly Steven Taiatini who was killed in Ōpōtiki—and it is a loss and I'm sorry to his family—his father was killed as well with gang violence. The question is this: do you want the sons or the sons after that to be killed because of gang violence? For me no; it's not acceptable and we have to do something about it. And we do have to work together to do that. So Harry Tam needs to step forward and say "How do we stop this? How do we work with Government rather than getting up and criticising?" ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."