Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — Third Reading 
Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:2944] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I move  
That the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill be now read a third time 
. This week is the second anniversary of the murder of Jhia Te Tua. In the 18 months to May 2007 around 180 gang-related incidents were attended by Wanganui police most of which resulted in the arrest and charging of gang members. Obviously the charges were brought forward under existing legislation. The incidents were minor on some occasions and they were major on others. Police were shot at during some incidents as were gang members whilst members of the public were in the vicinity and predictably an innocent child died. This behaviour is replicated around the country in the biggest cities and the smallest rural towns. 
Then as a result of collaboration between the Wanganui District Council Wanganui police and the community the initiative was taken to draft a local bill to ban gang patches from certain public locations around Wanganui. The Local Government Act 2002 provides a mechanism for communities to make laws to deal with local issues. It does not prevent the inauguration of criminal law on a local basis and one would think that if the previous Labour Government on introducing the Local Government Act had wanted to achieve that surely it would have specifically excluded it. The local council police and community drafted this bill and consulted on the proposal through public meetings submissions and a referendum even before the public consultation as part of the local bill process. Those who took the time to engage in the process overwhelmingly supported the bill. 
Opponents of this bill now have to tell the people of Wanganui why in this free and democratic society they can validly seek to withhold from them the right to access the provisions of the Local Government Act. Many opponents make the rather blunt statement that the provisions of the bill will not work. It has to be said quite forcefully that opponents who are parroting such statements need to state what they believe this bill is targeted at. It is targeted at the intimidatory nature of wearing and displaying gang insignia. It is not an attempt to outlaw gangs stop gang offending or bring about world peace; it is a narrowly focused instrument to stop intimidation by virtue of the display of gang insignia—that is it. 
Passing this bill will prevent gang members from wearing gang insignia in certain places around Wanganui and that is important on a number of levels. Scruffy-looking individuals may well intimidate people by means of their mere presence or their behaviour. It may be a result of their dress or their tattoos or it could be a result of their unkempt condition language company or whatever else it may be. But when a Black Power or Mongrel Mob patch is put on those individuals they become to the observer the manifestation of all the publicity in respect of criminal offending by that gang. Just by wearing that patch they become in the eyes of the onlooker rapists murderers assailants or random killers who are likely to break into spontaneous violence at any stage. That is the history of the Mongrel Mob Black Power and Hell’s Angels. Those gangs exploit that record. They exploit that history they publicise it and they honour and applaud it and that is intimidating. The intimidation is directly tied to the recognition of the insignia and all that it represents. The display and wearing of the gang patch creates that intimidation and it is precisely this activity that the bill addresses. 
The implementation of this legislation will remove the imperative to defend a gang member’s patch or attack the patch of another. It creates neutral turf which is a concept that the gangs understand very very well. It does not make opposing gang members blind to the presence of a rival gang but it removes the “in your face” obnoxious presence of rival gangs. The removal of gang patches takes the heat out of the presence of rival gangs and that is why gang patches are prohibited in courts pubs police stations schools concert venues and shows and in a myriad of other premises and places around the country. Opponents of this bill need to explain the inconsistency in their argument if they differentiate between the prohibitions on gang insignia that exist currently and the proposed prohibitions contained in this bill. 
It is also important to note that as part of research to canvass youth attitudes needs and wants in Wanganui across a range of issues which was carried out before the proposal of this bill 49 percent of Wanganui youth spontaneously responded that intimidation by gangs and gang associates was the single-biggest threat to their feeling safe in their own community. Opponents of this bill need to explain why Parliament should not take this small step to allow young people to feel safer in their own communities. 
Just in recent times we had an attack gang on gang in the main street of Wanganui outside the Work and Income New Zealand office. It occurred at 11 o’clock one weekday morning in the main street of Wanganui. It is captured on video surveillance. There is a group of young patched members standing outside the Work and Income office. A car pulls up there is an exchange between patched-up rival members from that vehicle and the group and then there is a severe beating that goes on right in the middle of the central business district and right in the middle of the morning in Wanganui. Although it is true to say that people in Wanganui can go from one year to the next without seeing a gang member in their community or up the main street there are people who live in suburbs in Wanganui and live within the gang community who are confronted by them every day. 
What is the feedback from the gangs? We heard from the police last week that they have had feedback from the gangs that the gangs recognise the position that this legislation puts them in. Gang members recognise that the loss of a gang patch by them is the single-biggest insult that they can give to their own gang. So what we are expecting and what the police are expecting is that the gang members within Wanganui will on the vast majority of occasions respect the prohibition that is laid out within the parallel legislation of the by-law in Wanganui just as they do now when they go to court the police station a show or their kids’ sports day. 
I have known gang members for decades. I have been attacked by them and I have responded in kind on occasions. At the same time I know some individual gang members very well. I know their kids I know their behaviours I know their flaws and they know mine. As individuals I can respect some of their virtues and values but collectively and when operating as a gang there is nothing to respect. When it comes to patched-up gang members intimidating law-abiding members of the public there is nothing to respect and I will do whatever I can to remove the ability of these groups to continue with that intimidation. I challenge the opponents of this bill to have the courage and the integrity to explain to this House and the people of Wanganui why they will not allow us to take this small step. I ask who the hell the opponents think they are to try to withhold from the people of Wanganui their right to address this narrow issue in this precise way. 
I state very firmly that I am enormously proud to represent a community that has the courage and the will to take this stand knowing as it does that to move in this way will highlight a nationwide problem that most towns seek to ignore—or at best minimise and mitigate—and knowing that the legislation will bring with it negative press and publicity and will cause confusion as the media grab the low-hanging fruit of gang activity in order to sell newspapers and air time. The media never give a tenth of that publicity to the many many positive aspects of life in Wanganui and the huge successes that our people realise every day. So I challenge the media to act responsibly and to show the balance that they continually wax lyrical about in their reporting of incidents in Wanganui. 
Finally I restate that Wanganui as a community and especially Mayor Laws and Inspector Duncan MacLeod have used precisely the provisions of the Local Government Act to address a criminal behaviour that the city has the guts to admit exists in our community. I demand to know of the opponents of the bill why they think they have the right to deny Wanganui the opportunity to act in this way.