Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Let's be honest—this is politics. This is politics right here and right now and that's what we're doing. We all agree right now in this House that gangs cause huge harm to our communities. We all agree on that. I grew up in Linwood in Christchurch. I went to school with children who were from families from the Mongrel Mob and from Black Power. When I was at high school one of my former classmates was a victim of a retribution-style shooting in Woolston between the Mongrel Mob and Black Power. I grew up in a neighbourhood that had gangs in it. I've seen firsthand the harm the destruction the violence the drugs and what that does to a community. We all agree that gangs do harm to New Zealand. The big question is: what do we do about that? And the answer we have today is to hide that under a rock—it's ugly and we don't want to look at it. It scares us. It's not nice—Let's push it over the border. Let's cast it into the sea. Let's forget about it. Let's eradicate them." These are the words we hear and the interesting thing is that history repeats itself. If you go back to the debate 10 20 30 even 40 years ago and look at the debates on this issue the same speeches we have just heard from members opposite have been made time and time again. Gangs scare us we don't like them we want to get rid of them. Is there any reason that they keep asking for them to go away?So I think that now is the time to have a grown-up conversation about what we do about the harm that is caused by criminal organisations in our community and it is for that reason and only that reason that we support this bill to select committee so we can continue this discussion. I lay down a challenge—that any member speaking on the second reading read 13 pages the abridged version just 13 pages of Towards an understanding of Aotearoa New Zealand's adult gang environment. Let's have an informed debate at the second reading. Let's take this bill to the select committee and hear the submissions but when we come back to this House for the second reading if everybody could do their homework I'd be really appreciative to have an informed mature debate about the actual issues that we are discussing.Boot camps are the same. I know that's not in this bill but it's the same issue. It's hiding something and pushing it away. It gives you an immediate feeling of gratification but it doesn't actually address the underlying problems that continue to plague our communities.When I worked in Police—Police under a National Government—police were instructed to not even talk to gangs. Police officers or anyone were not allowed to engage. Over a period of time that changed. It changed so much there were even gang liaison officers who would go in and speak to gangs understand what was happening when a tangi was happening and understand greater information when a gang homicide had happened. When I met with those liaison officers the area commanders and the district commanders all talked about how quickly crime was resolved when we had open communication and we understood things more. They minimised harm within the community when they had better-quality intelligence about what was happening.I saw that police officers who previously would have said "Yes let's smash them. Let's eradicate the gangs get rid of them." saw the benefits of engagement. They saw the benefits of understanding what was driving offending and they felt that it gave better outcomes not only for the community but also for those young people growing up within gang families. It gave those young people hope.What this bill does I'm afraid in its current form is it takes hope away from young people who want to live without a life of crime and I fear that what bills like this do is just incarcerate the next generation of rangatahi in New Zealand in another cycle of crime and offending. It's within all our interests to break that cycle of reoffending. It's within all our interests to do our homework to understand what the actual issues are to stop just scoring political points and have a reasonable debate about how we make our country safer and about how we work together to achieve this."