Turei Metiria: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2113] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I might just seek a clarification quickly as part of this call. We are dealing with clause 5 and then clause 5A separately? Is that right? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Can I respond to that. There will be several questions under clauses 5A 5B 5C etc. They are separate clauses and there will be separate debates. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Thank you Mr Chair. I would like to reiterate our concern that the council has a great deal of power under the bylaw-making powers in clause 5. The council does have some guidelines I guess over how it might identify or define a gang for the purpose of the legislation. There have to be some kinds of general characteristics such as a common name or identifying signs symbols or representations and the gang’s members associates or supporters must collectively promote encourage or engage in a pattern of criminal activity. I think there are some real legal issues there relating to how that is going to be defined. 
I know that the bill itself identifies some gangs already including the Hell’s Angels. It is worth noting to the Committee that in the US the Hell’s Angels took a case against a very similar legal provision that tried to ban them as a criminal gang. My understanding of the outcome was that the Hell’s Angels argued that they were a motorcycle club could prove they were a motorcycle club and could not as a club be held responsible for the criminal activity of individuals within that club. And in the US—which is not exactly an easy place to deal with these issues—the Hell’s Angels won their case. They were not able to be persecuted—as they might put it—by that legislation. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Well they need to be. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Judith Collins can chatter away on the side. She is not making a reasonable contribution to this debate on legislation that will cause some very serious restrictions to the movement of citizens particularly through the Wanganui District. I know she can chatter away all she likes but it would be quite useful to allow the debate to proceed on some kind of sensible line as opposed to the nattering that is going on. 
There are some real issues about whether the legal provisions within this bill are sufficiently enforceable and whether we can be certain that the council can make decisions about identifying gangs not already listed—I know that the Hell’s Angels are already listed—and not suffer from considerable costs from taking action against organisations that it may want to identify as criminal gangs but in respect of which it may find itself in court fighting very lengthy and very expensive battles. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Good! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: I am sure that Judith Collins would not mind paying for those expensive battles but I do not think that the people of the Wanganui District would be particularly happy about paying vast sums of money to battle these kinds of provisions in the courts. 
This is where the bill I think fails. It fails because it does not make any difference to what gangs actually do but only to how they look. Again I say it is very poorly thought out legislation in that respect because it does not provide any certainty to the council—much less certainty than most other laws that are passed—and it does some give some room for well-resourced organisations to fight this legislation in the courts forcing the council to spend vast quantities of ratepayers’ money on defending these provisions. If the provisions were better thought-out if they were narrower and if the intention of the council was to deal with behaviour which is more certain and could be more readily dealt with under the existing criminal law then perhaps there would not be this kind of risk for the Wanganui District ratepayers. But as it is this legislation provides a significant risk to them. 
I again reiterate that the bylaw-making powers provide a loophole for the council so much so that despite the provision of clause 5(5) it is possible for the council to effectively rule the entire district as coming under this legislation thereby causing very severe restrictions on movement for people who live in that area—people who are not at all part of any kind of criminal organisation and have no involvement in such an organisation.