Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Thank you. What a nasty little bill. What a vile small-minded smug insincere little bill. A bill that appeals to the basest instinct a bill that drums up fear a bill that frankly stands in the way of helping people. And you know what the word Simeon Brown used most often in that speech was? They". Not "us"; "they". "Those people over there that don't belong that aren't one of us that I want to vilify." Well I won't vilify anyone. Everyone in New Zealand belongs to—this House of Representatives should represent them. And you know what? Who are these peddlers of meth? You know you can vilify them like that but they are brothers fathers sons. They are people. And look who is a gang associate? Now it might be some nasty person or it might be some frightened 18-year-old who is doing the bidding of someone much nastier than him. Do you say we shouldn't help that person? Well I don't. And if there's a way to get into that person's organisation to reach out to stop being arrogant and be a little more humble—so much for your serve in leadership. How about a bit of humility and saying "I want to reach out."?This is a nasty little bill that others an entire section of our community and absolutely prevents agencies that want to help from doing what is best. It is the broken National Party approach of yesteryear and if we want to try to do things better we will continue to try and we will make progress—because for 100 years we haven't—and we will try new things. This is a bill that dog whistles to people that want to build a wall. This is a party that's afraid of calling a holiday Matariki because it's "a bit too Māori." I don't want any part of that kind of approach. This is a bill that would—[Interruption]—thank you—this is a bill that would address the woeful inequities in our health system by abolishing our Māori Health Authority. This is the party that would address the fact that 13 of 18 Ngāi Tahi marae don't have reticulated water by preventing water reform. This party would address Māori overrepresentation in prison by building a bigger prison. And this is exactly the kind of thing we've come to expect from that broken National Party. It's an ill-thought-out knee-jerk reaction. Frankly it's childish.We won't sit on our hands and take the same failed approach as the National Party of demonising people with addiction issues and taking an alarmist and utterly wrong approach to the meth issue. What we'll do is we'll take advice. We will build on knowledge. And the programme that gave rise to this alarmism it was advised by the Ministry of Justice Corrections Te Puni Kōkiri the Ministry of Education Police Treasury Oranga Tamariki and the Chief Science Adviser. That is a list of a lot of thoughtful people who said "Do it. It'll work." And you know what? Here's the thing Mr Brown. It did work. It's recognised that it had a very high success rate. News flash: people who have had addiction problems can help people with addiction problems. People like you and me Mr Brown cannot enter into these communities. We can't communicate. We can't connect. We need people in those communities who have been there who can connect. And that's not you and me. Sure we need to be tough on crime but what we really need to be is tough on the drivers of crime. If we're just throwing people into prison for their broken addictions we will perpetrate it. We know for a fact that as soon as we send someone to prison the likelihood of them going there again escalates dramatically. But that's the answer of Mr Brown: don't try anything new. Just take a broken system and perpetrate it again.This bill is far too broad. Even if it had a germ of an idea in it it says that the public funds can't fund any agency directly or indirectly. So who's that going to capture? Well that's going to capture all kinds of things. It's going to capture a food bank that provides food parcels into gang families. There you go we're supporting a gang community. Are you going to stop feeding tamariki because it's financial assistance to a gang? What's more this is not the National Party of yesteryear. We know for a fact that the ministry of Māori affairs under the National Government liaised with gangs. That was something that went on frequently. John Key himself had a tackling methamphetamine action plan half of which was aimed at rehabilitation. And here we have someone saying: "No no; no rehabilitation. What we don't want is to get communities to help communities." This is an absolutely retrograde step. It's smug insincere and supercilious. It's grandstanding. The idea over there is stuck in the Mosaic law: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's 3000 years out of date. This bill will do nothing other than further alienate and demonise communities. The idea that we can't use funds in a way that best addresses the problem to draw people in to connect communities to build bridges to recognise that we have to have a conversation—that those who are in the communities are best equipped to reach further in to lift people up not push them down.Mr Brown if you want to talk meaningfully about how to address gangs and the drug problem come over here; I'll talk any time. But the first thing we need to do is stop using the word "they" and start using the words "us" and "our"—our communities our people they are suffering they are broken. Some people commit crimes and they need to be addressed through the justice system. But first and foremost we need to address the drivers of crime: poverty addiction health and intergenerational trauma. Those are the things which you don't seem to understand. We shouldn't be coming to this House with a high-handed arrogance that "others" everyone else that says "I'm better and here's what we're going to do to them." We need to come here and say "How can I serve your community—a community I don't know well but a community I need to know more about. How can I become connected? Who in your community can reach out to me and help me do that?" And if that happens to be a gang member to do that effectively to lift people out of the place that they're in we need to spend Crown money. It's money well spent. And what's more it's money spent that will assist that community and it will assist the wider community. A community that is more equal and equitable is a safer and better community for everyone. So Mr Brown this bill is a short bill but it's amazing how much venom you can fit into two pages—a nasty little bill. We will not be supporting this bill."