Sabin Mike: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12489. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):That speech from Jan Logie ensured that the Green Party poll next time around will be well under 10 percent. The Green Party says that it does not support this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill but it does supports getting smart on crime. What does that actually mean? What that actually means is the Greens co-leader Metiria Turei getting on television and encouraging families to grow cannabis advocating the growing of cannabis as a legitimate and OK thing to do. That is what they think getting smart on crime is.I want to just touch a little bit on those who have brought this bill to the House Todd McClay initially before becoming a Minister and Mark Mitchell. I want to acknowledge the contribution of both of those members. I also want to acknowledge the contribution of the New Zealand Police to making New Zealand the safe society that on the whole it is. The police are a bunch of men and women who do a very very good job for this nation. You do not have to go too far in the world to see that they are a fine body of men and women serving the interests of this country well and I want to acknowledge them.Ninety percent of organised crime in New Zealand is gang related—90 percent of organised crime. Gangs exist for a few reasons but the core of them is to facilitate criminal activity. At the top of the list is drug dealing and right underneath that sit prostitution money-laundering and standovers and intimidation. Often they all roll into one. That is what gangs are there for. They are not clubs. They are not groups of people who are doing any benefit to society whatsoever; they are outlaws. Everything that Parliament can do to diminish their power to do what they do to society is a positive thing.The gang patch and what it means is more significant to them than anything else. Sometimes it is more significant to them than life itself. To earn a patch gang members will have to inflict on society the most heinous of crimes—robbery grievous bodily harm and rape to name but a few. But if a gang member wants to get an instant patch then it will be a homicide and many have committed homicide simply to get that patch. To them there is some badge-of-honour element to it. There is some badge-of-honour element to it because to them it means everything and trying to take it off them is not a case of just having a sign up.The member Kris Faafoi—ironically his constituency of Mana includes Porirua where the police recruits are trained—tells us the Porirua Police Station has got a sign saying “No gangs” so that is OK and we do not actually need this bill. Courts have those signs as well. But what do police stations and courts generally have? That is right—lots of people involved in enforcement and security. What do school-grounds pools parks and the like have? None of that. This bill will give the police the opportunity to get there and to lock those gang members up. If we followed Mr Faafoi’s logic—although I am not sure that logic and Mr Faafoi are two things that would go happily in one sentence—then all we would need to do is have signs around the place about not committing crime: “No robberies here” “No rapes here” and “No murders here” and that would take care of it because signs are going to take care of all criminal activity.He went on to say that what we really should be doing is focusing on stopping youth getting into gangs. I absolutely agree. My question to that member and to those on the Opposition benches is: why do they vote against every initiative that we are putting inplace to give those young people a chance to get into work? Putting aside what we are doing with the economy why do they vote against the welfare reforms that support 16 and 17-year-olds having the chance to have the skills and the wraparound support that they need to get them work-ready? Why do they vote against the youth starting out wage which will give young New Zealanders an opportunity to be employed and help break down the barrier that young people often face? Why do they vote against the 90-day trial?Those members vote against every effort. They will stand over there with their disingenuous chanting and ranting about this Government needing to do this and needing to do that but they will vote against us when we do try to do it. I am saying that members cannot have it both ways. They seem to think they can but the New Zealand public have woken up to that. They are just wandering around in a sort of yesteryear of how the Labour Party used to operate and they do not get that New Zealanders have woken up to that.The member the Hon Phil Goff who has some considerable experience in this area and certainly in Parliament says that this will be an offence at a school pool but it will not be an offence down at the rugby league ground and that it will be an offence under the bus shelter but it will not be on the footpath beside it. Well here is a bit of news for Mr Goff. If he wants to read through the Summary Offences Act and the Crimes Act he will find that there are actually many offences that have location as a specific ingredient OK? This is not unique legislation. I do not see him wanting to repeal all legislation that says something is an offence in a public place but not in a private place.Moana Mackey: That wasn’t his point. The point was that it’s unworkable.MIKE SABIN: Well the point is that Mr Goff does not have a point—he does not have a point. Mr Goff has to oppose because Labour members have painted themselves into a position where all they know is to oppose. If you ask any New Zealander: “Who on earth would oppose this?”—other than the Greens because we expect that because the Greens are sort of pro - criminal rights and forget about the victims that the criminals create—there is no one. There is no one. Well at least the Labour Party can be guaranteed a few votes in the 2014 election from a few gang members—not that they tend to vote very much but it might pick up one or two out of that.Mr Goff also went on about the drivers of crime saying we must address the drivers of crime. Well that member’s party had 9 years to do something about the drivers of crime that have fed gang culture and have ensured that gangs have exploded on to the New Zealand scene in recent years. One was methamphetamine. They sat back there and did nothing saying “Oh no this problem is all under control. Nothing to see here. It will all go away.”What has this Government done? There are just a few things—just a few headliners. There is the Methamphetamine Action Plan banning precursors. The Government has ramped up border controls and strategies around dealing with international transition of precursors and drugs. It has changed search and surveillance laws significantly. It has refocused the police to a focus on prevention and drivers of crime. It has changed bail laws and put the onus on serious criminals to prove that people will be safe. It has got tougher sentencing laws for the most serious crimes. It has introduced drug courts. It has doubled the amount of treatment in prisons—actually we could go on and on.The reality is that Labour Party members will stand up and say “Oh they’ve got to do something about this.” but there is a reason that crime is dropping. There is a reason that crime is dropping. It is not some sort of global trend that is occurring. It is actually about smart prudent policy and about a Government that commits and does. Opposition members have been decidedly defensive about this saying “Oh we don’t want to be getting soft on crime.” Well what else can it be?The thing that I find most astounding is that here is the Labour Party and—well as I say we expect that from the Green Party; that is the watermelon patch way. When we look at the Labour Party it is opposing the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Bill. We are actually fixing up what was actually a loophole left just quietly on the side there by Helen Clark some years ago. We are actually fixing that up and putting tighter scrutiny and controls around this. But no one in the Labour Party would say we need this legislation; they say we need a review. Well it is not about a review. They oppose the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation which is designed to protect us from international terrorism and those in New Zealand who are active in that and they also oppose legislation about domestic terrorism. That is what gangs reap on society.I think that is a fairly sad indictment that the Labour Party has got right out of touch with New Zealand because they are opposing those two pieces of legislation that are very deep in the hearts of New Zealanders. What is the Labour Party actually standing up for? It is not standing up for New Zealanders. And will this bill make a difference? Well damn right it will make a difference. As a former police officer I know how much it will make a difference to be able to take that patch off that gang member and how much it will make a difference to be able to reduce the intimidation that gang members inflict on us. They are nothing more than a parasitical blight on New Zealand society. They are a cancer and they feed off their host and their host is the children of New Zealand citizens.Who else other than the Labour Party and the Green Party would actually think that voting against this was a good idea? Well they are all listed in the bill. There is a whole range of gangs. No one other than those people would vote against this. To me it is a sad indictment and a demonstration that they are out of touch. This is a good bill.Darien Fenton: Spit it out.MIKE SABIN: In a minute. This is a good bill. It will be effective law. The public want it. The police want it. The gangs do not and the message from this Government to the gang members is: “Gang members no more patchies for you.”