Garrett David: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — First Reading 
Garrett David: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1107] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I am happy to rise in support of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill and I begin by saying I am happy to agree with two speakers on the Labour side. Ms Dalziel quite correctly said that the gang problem has morphed over recent years from men in stinking denims with tattoos on their faces and elsewhere into men in suits. That is true. They have moved more towards the Capone mob than they ever were before. I am happy to agree with Mr Cosgrove who described gangs as a scourge on our society because that is what they are. 
The reason I was attracted to ACT is very simple. Its founding principle is that the first role of the State is the protection of its citizens—to protect its citizens and not to protect criminals. Sadly that is where my agreement with the other side of the House ends. I believe that the concept of the protection of citizens rather than criminals was foreign to the previous Government. It let violent offenders out of prison after serving just one third of their sentence which William Bell who had 102 previous convictions roam around and kill Mary Hobson and three others. 
I am very pleased that the new Government’s first 100 days has included emphasis on legislation to deal with these problems. I respectfully disagree with my colleagues on the National benches who say that association laws are very difficult. I recall an exchange of correspondence between myself and that greatly respected éminence grise from the Labour Party Sir Geoffrey Palmer more than 20 years ago when he loftily informed me that we could not make laws to outlaw gangs because no Western society had done so. I informed him—he did not bother to reply—that West Germany as it then was had successfully outlawed Fascist parties and that the Irish Republic had successfully outlawed the IRA. Neither of them was repressive totalitarian regimes. 
It is possible to pass non-association laws. If we talk to older policemen we will hear that they used to go to the flying-jug hotel in every town—I think it was in Cambridge Terrace here in Wellington—pick out the guys who were subject to non-association orders and lock them up. But then we started to say that no we could not do that because it was against people’s human rights. When we talk to retired policemen they tell us that. 
We support this bill as a good start. It is kind of ironic for me as I stand here that locals in my pub up in Kaukapakapa who are mostly Labour voters would say that this bill does not go anywhere near far enough and that we should have an “Extermination of Gangs Bill”. Those people are Labour voters but crucially they have mixed with those guys. They know what they are like. They know that the Mongrel Mob is not another kind of whanau. They know that what Metiria Turei was saying is simply nonsense. 
Gangs are criminal organisations whose focus is making money. As Ms Dalziel has said they are making a hell of a lot of money from P and they are also making money from dope dealing and from stealing cars breaking them up and selling them. They are making money from raping paua beds and selling paua to whomever. Sadly with Asian gangs coming in they are making money from contract killings extortion and protection. 
 Gangs are not whanau. They are not a rough version of the Lions club as silly left-wing commentators used to say. We can differentiate in law between the Lions club and Black Power the Hell’s Angels or the Headhunters just as the West Germans did and just as the Irish did. Sadly my friends at the Kaukapakapa pub are wrong. An “Extermination of Gangs Bill” is not that simple—we all know that—and this bill is a demonstration of the complexity of the problem. It needs to be attacked on a number of fronts and this bill talks about that especially about interception warrants. 
Ms Dalziel is absolutely right: the stupid fools who parade around barking like dogs and waving their blue scarves or whatever they are—red is the colour of the other bunch of clowns is it not—are probably too stupid to need interception warrants to be caught. But the P dealers the Headhunters and the Hell’s Angels—she is quite right—all keep quiet. They have nice houses in Herne Bay they smile at their neighbours and they help old ladies across the road. At Christmas time they have a nice run and collect teddy bears. But they are the really sinister ones. That is why we need these kinds of provisions to get into them find out what they are doing get the evidence and lock them up for a very long time. None of these gangs are motorcycle clubs. As Ms Dalziel says they have moved on a bit. But some of those old ones still exist. 
I do not know how many members of the House have been in gang pads but I have. A lot of gang members will say “We’re not a gang; we’re a club. See—MC bro MC: motorcycle club.” But that is nonsense. It is absolute nonsense. Another thing on the patch is “1%”. That is there because they claim proudly to be outlaws. That “1%” comes from a motorcycle association in California in the 1940s when the whole gang thing and culture first started. That organisation came out and said that fewer than 1 percent of motorcycle riders were outlaws and law-breakers. So the gangs adopted the figure proudly and said: “One percent—you see we’re outlaws.” That is what they are and outlaws deliberately put themselves outside the law. They say: “We don’t give a stuff about your laws.” or they say it in language a bit more fruity than that. 
We should respond by saying that they are outside the law and are not entitled to the same rights as you are Mr Assistant Speaker or as I am or as the members on the other side of the House are. They have fewer rights because of their behaviour—they are outlaws—and this bill is a good start. Those gangs are no more—even the motorcycle gangs the prominent gangs. They used to be the Capone mob in stinking denims but now the smart ones have moved on. They have given away the denims and they have bought the pinstriped suits— 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
DAVID GARRETT 
: I notice that my leader the leader of our gang has entered the House but I cannot reveal our initiation rites here! 
But Ms Dalziel is correct: it is the ones in suits we have to fear and it is those gangs that this bill is targeting with interception warrants. The bill is a good start and we are proud and pleased to support it.