Mark Ron: General Debate 
Mark Ron: General Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9060] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise today to speak on behalf of New Zealand First about the cancer that is currently eating away at the very social fabric of our nation—that being the cancer— 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: New Zealand First! 
RON MARK 
: Isn’t he a child—Jonathan Coleman? The cancer that eats away at our communities is known as gangs and those lawless elements that make up gangs. I do not want to be here accusing this Government or that Government of what it did or did not do. What New Zealand First wants to talk about is what we can be doing. The first thing we can do is to recognise that we have a problem. 
 I want to quote some words of a famous New Zealander who said when speaking on gangs that those people posed a most dangerous threat to New Zealand’s peace tranquillity and security. Those were the words of former Prime Minister Mike Moore. Another well-known and highly regarded member of Parliament said that he “had had a gutsful of gang intimidation and violence and that the police and local bodies should be given laws with teeth to deal with them. He did not accept that it was too difficult to come up with laws that targeted gang activities.”1 That was Paul Swain’s view when MP for Eastern Hutt. 
Many Governments have wrestled with this problem but we say to the House that as parliamentarians we have only touched on the fringes. Here in Parliament we still have this attitude of legitimising the existence of gangs by talking and negotiating with them over the perceived problems and difficulties that give cause to their being. By doing such things we actually legitimise their existence and we give credence to their right to exist in the form they do. Let it be clearly understood that gangs exist in this country for one purpose and for one purpose alone—to conduct criminal activity and from that to derive profit. 
We know that we have armed groups of thugs in every community and in every corner of our communities throughout New Zealand. We know that they are actively recruiting young people. We know that each of the major gangs has youth feeder gangs such as the Troublesome gang and the Bud Smoking Thugs up in Manukau. We know that each one of those youth gangs feeds into the parent gang which so often is the Mongrel Mob or Black Power. It is time that we as a nation grabbed hold of this problem at its very core. 
New Zealand First will stand and support any legislation put up by the Government or by any other MP such as Chester Borrows. Banning patches—we are with that. Increasing the penalties for crimes committed by gangs—we are with that. Cutting into their asset bases and confiscating their money and all their assets—we are with that. We will vote for that; we will support that. But we say that that legislation is peripheral to the one core piece of legislation we need to pass and that legislation is legislation to ban their very existence. 
I have heard people say that it cannot be done. Well the legislation we are talking about is based around the Terrorism Suppression Act which this Government passed. It works! The legislation we are talking about is also based around the Singaporean legislation which Singapore passed and enacted. I would like anyone who has been in Singapore to tell me whether they saw gangs in Singapore—not one. This is the time for this nation through this House to get control of its own streets and return our communities to being safe communities—where people can sleep in their beds without fear of being shot where they can go out at night without fear of being harassed beaten up and robbed where 96-year-old ladies can walk down a footpath without fear of being accosted by some young thug and beaten up and where a man who goes out to stop people knocking over his letterbox does not end up in a wheelchair with one eye missing and brain damage. That is the sort of community that New Zealand First wants to see. 
We see that the first approach and the first attack if we in this Parliament are serious about reducing violence and crime is to eliminate gangs. Anything short of that is not good enough. Members may tell me that section 98A of the Crimes Act is not sufficient—fine. But there is confusion among the Ministers in the House. Mr Burton says that the provision is too complex to enforce. Mr Goff told me in this very Chamber that it is not being used because the penalties are not harsh enough. New Zealand First does not care which the answer is; all we care about is passing legislation with the support of this House to eliminate gangs from our society and our communities.