Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I'm surprised at the previous speaker. The deputy leader of the Labour Party took his whole 10-minute speech to refer to Waitangi Day. It's an important day. It's an historic day for us. I personally have been going to Waitangi myself since 2011. We haven't always had a warm welcome there but we continue to front up and that's what our leader Simon Bridges did this year. He made a very direct speech and he feels that that's the place each year to come together and talk honestly and talk openly. He wasn't afraid to do that and he did that.I don't think that Ngāpuhi are shrinking violets and I don't think that they are afraid to stand up and speak openly and clearly to both the Government and the Opposition. I had a translation device with me. I listened to all those speeches. I thought they were all outstanding. I thought the bravest speech of the day was the speech of the National Party leader Simon Bridges because he wasn't afraid to talk to some of the serious issues that actually face us as a nation.I find it very interesting that the deputy leader of the Labour Party would stand up and attack Simon and his whakapapa. He attacks him because he doesn't sound like him. Because he doesn't speak like him for some reason his status his mana is diminished and that goes against everything that they're meant to stand for and what they continue to attack us on. So while the deputy leader of the Labour Party was standing and delivering that speech he's also the Minister of Corrections. I can tell you that I've seen an email in the last two days from the Corrections department saying that they're under serious pressure because of the rise in prison numbers. They don't have the beds for serious offending. The reason why they need them is because serious offending is going up under this Government.Let's have a look at National's record. Let's have a look at National's record when we were last in Government—nine years with police Ministers like Judith Collins and the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Paula Bennett. Under their leadership some of the stats we look at youth crime reduced by 31 percent. It reduced by 31 percent. That's from 2011 to 2017. Overall crime reduced by 14 percent. Violent crime reduced by 2 percent. Here's the most important one. Here's one of the most important ones because in this House I think we all believe in rehabilitation. We don't want people coming into our criminal justice system but once they're there we want to try and rehabilitate them and give them the best shot of rejoining society when they come back out. So let's have a look at our reoffending rates: reduced by 26 percent—26 percent.Let's have a look at the current Government's record. In the year ending November 2019 the number of serious assault victims resulting in injury has increased by almost 40 percent—40 percent. The number of active serious harm cases before the District Court has risen by 25 percent. We've got 1400 new patched gang members in this country—1400. In the last three weeks we've seen running gang warfare in the Bay of Plenty. We've seen firearms used and we saw a tragedy unfold last night that resulted in two deaths. We avoided an absolute tragedy in Taradale two weeks ago when an infant's car seat ended up with a shotgun pellet in it as a result of a gang confrontation between 30 patched gang members in the middle of Taradale in the middle of the day in New Zealand.Hon Nathan Guy: Whose electorate is it?Hon MARK MITCHELL: That electorate is the Hon Stuart Nash's—Hon Nathan Guy: What's he doing about it?Hon MARK MITCHELL: —who also happens to be the police Minister. Well let me come to that. So who in this House will put their hand up and say that we should accept that in a modern New Zealand we have 30 patched gang members in the middle of a provincial town with—banned now—military-style weapons fighting? There's no hands showing so we all agree on that one. Who agrees in this House that after having 30 patched gang members in open warfare in Taradale there's been four arrests? Who thinks that that's appropriate? I can tell you it's not.I do want to speak to our police service especially in relation to Tauranga. The current district commander there is a guy by the name of Superintendent Andy McGregor. He was my armed offenders squad (AOS) commander when I was on the AOS in Gisborne. He spent years on the coast policing the gangs and at that time the Rastafarians from Ruatōria down to Wairoa. He understands what the challenge is; he knows how to deal with it. I've got no problems at all with the police and their operational capability. We have got a world-class police service that is capable of taking these gangs on.The district commander down there made an important statement and I totally agree with it: they can't do it on their own. They can't. It takes a joined-up approach whether it be from local government—and I spoke with Mayor Tenby Powell this afternoon in terms of what he wants to see in response. We need to see iwi leaders and iwi get involved with this. We need the community. This Government here—the Minister stands up in Taradale and he says We need the community to respond. We need the community help." I'll tell you something. Let me tell you something: you will not get the community standing up and wanting to put their head above the parapet in front of gang members unless they are absolutely confident that the police are controlling and running the town. If they feel the gangs are of course they're not going to want to come forward. Of course they're not wanting to incur that personal risk.Let me read you just a piece of this letter that was written to the local MP and Minister of Police Stuart Nash from a 12-year-old girl that lives in his electorate. She wrote "I'm very confused and concerned. On Thursday last week there was a group of Mongrel Mob members breaking the law at Maraekakaho - Orchard Rd intersection. Amazingly there were not one but two police officers standing right there at the intersection when the Mongrel Mob got there. But it's not all about what the Mongrel Mob members were doing but what the police were doing about it. The Mongrel Mob members were sitting in the windows of their car."—so they were hanging out of their cars sitting on the windows—"They were driving through red lights."—so they were driving through red lights—"Other cars were struggling to drive across without getting hit." Again this is in the middle of the day. What does she want to see? Does she want to see the police responding and actually taking action against Mongrel Mob members that are flagrantly breaking the law that just a couple of months before had taken over a public car park to do a patching ceremony or do they want to see the police standing back and allowing them to get on with it?The problem is this. I'll tell you what the problem is and the Justice department highlighted this. It is that the Public Service will react to the signals sent by Government and this comes back to the heart of the problem of what we're experiencing as a nation right now. When you see 1400 more gang members when you see a rise in gang violence and organised crime activity it's because this Government is a soft-on-crime Government that has sent a clear signal—Michael Wood: Rubbish.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —to our Public Service. Rubbish? Get up and talk about it Mr Wood because I'm telling you now: your communities are not feeling safer under a Labour-led Government. They're feeling more exposed and if you're sensitive to your ethnic communities you will be seeing a very clear message that they do not feel safe under this Government.This is a soft-on-crime Government. We're seeing every single measure in terms of public safety heading in the wrong direction. I can tell you right now: our leader has been very clear and he spoke about this at Waitangi that we are going to take action against gangs. We are going to take action against organised crime. We do have the will and we will provide the leadership because we believe that for too long in this country it's been normalised and we've put up with it. You've created a permissive environment in this country where they will continue to operate like that. They know that under a Simon Bridges - led National Party in Government those days are over that the pressure is going to come on them that we will implement a gang policy.Very very quickly let me talk about that meeting in Taradale. I took over a bill in 2013 banning gang patches in public buildings. Do you know the only power that the police could use on the day? On the day of that public meeting the Black Power turned up. A patched Black Power member came into the hall to try and intimidate the community in Taradale. The police were able to remove him. You know how? By using that power. I talked to the detective inspector afterwards—Labour didn't even support the bill. They wouldn't even support the bill when it came through the House. They should hang their heads in shame. They voted against that bill. Do you know why they voted against that bill? Because they said that it would be an impingement on gang members' freedoms of expression—that's what they said. That was the only power the police had that day to remove that gang member from a situation in a community hall where he was intimidating members of the community."