McKee Nicole; Dean JacquiCRIMINAL PROCEEDS (RECOVERY) (DEFINITION OF SIGNIFICANT CRIMINAL ACTIVITY) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingNICOLE McKEE (ACT): I move That the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) (Definition of Significant Criminal Activity) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. We need to have this bill. We need to have it in place and the reason why is because crime is totally out of control in New Zealand. The reason why crime is totally out of control is because we have a Government that is soft on gangs soft on punishment and soft on answers. Five years—five years—they've been in Government and law and order at the moment is at its worst. The Commissioner of Police wants to police by consent and the gangs are taking full advantage of that and while policing by consent actually does nothing for the victims of crime we are now producing the next generation of ram raid kids. They should be at school learning an education not out on the streets learning how to be criminals. But the big problem that's facing us now is the serious gun crime—serious gun crime committed by unlicensed unconcerned unrepentant drug-fuelled thugs. Did the firearms confiscation make us safer? No. It targeted those that obeyed the law. It didn't get the guns off the streets. It took 60000 firearms from the police-approved secure safes and how many gang members handed in their guns? How many contributed to the 60000 that—Hon Stuart Nash: That's where they get their guns from. NICOLE McKEE: —were voluntarily handed in? One—one gang member one firearm Minister Nash. It was doomed to fail the safer communities goal from the start because it targeted the wrong people. The Government failed New Zealand and they double down on legislation that's continuing to fail New Zealand. My bill is designed to assist police with meeting realistic and achievable forfeiture thresholds. It's designed to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets—and let me tell you why. It's because we've chosen the path of asset seizure. Studies have shown that sending gang members to jail is like sending kids to a candy store—it's one of their favourite places to be because they can recruit more members there. The studies also show that domestic violence within families that come from gang-affiliated homes is often serious violent harm so the threat of losing one's family doesn't even appear to have that much effect either. But the moment you talk about taking away their bling their assets well then—just like we do with the Labour Party—you hit a nerve. To them money brings status it brings power and it brings envy. Currently police have criteria to meet in order to freeze and seize assets and this includes meeting thresholds within section 6(1) of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 as to what makes a significant criminal activity. Not only does the offending have to consist of one or more offences but it must be punishable by five years or more in prison and police must prove that the property proceeds or the benefits to the activity actually amount to $30000 or more. Now the police have told me that they actually wait until they know the assets are at a value of over $100000 before they apply because having to prove the $30000 value of ill-gotten assets can be difficult especially when section 6(3) excludes any expenses or outgoings used in connection with criminal activity. We can make it easier and fruitful for police. All of us are familiar with the headlines that we hear and we read in the news when police raid a criminal's premises. What do they find? Three things: drugs cash and guns. This bill will make the finding of an illegally held firearm a new threshold to freeze and seize assets. It's designed to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets. It's to deter the use of illegally held firearms. It's about holding gangs and criminals to account and making sure there is a price to pay for having a firearm without a licence but with criminal intent—that is a place where significant criminal activity occurs. It's about giving police another tool—a real tool an effective tool—to go after the gangs. What sorts of figures are we talking here? Well in the five years between 2017 and 2021 the seized assets valued $626360911. It was made up of some very big asset seizures including $123 million in 2019 and $220 million in 2020—$626 million over five years—and yet this Government budgeted only $95 million to fight organised crime but they'll put $200 million for setting up a registry for firearms that the gangs and criminals will have absolutely no intention of using. Only Labour wastes money like this during a cost of living crisis. Not only that the Government often claims that they've taken all this money from the gangs but statistics tell us a different story. Nearly $500 million of the $626 million—that's nearly half a billion dollars—that was recovered actually came from white-collar criminals not from the gangs. This money should be used to fight the gangs not fund them. This bill is an opportunity for the Government to actually do what they claimed that they would do when they used our line and said that they wanted to hit the gangs where it hurts—in their pockets. I expect that the Government will say that they've got their own ideas they've got their own criminal proceeds and recovery bill and they've got their own firearms prohibition orders because to them it's about the politics not the people. But I must say with all due respect that if you don't understand the problem how can you actually fix it? This Government has so far wasted their five years and hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars on what should be used on service to our communities. By failing them which you've done now when it comes to law and order you've wasted the money. Going after licensed firearms owners has also wasted taxpayer time and money. It's caused anger and distrust from nearly a quarter of a million people towards the Government and the police. Relationships built over decades were destroyed in weeks because the target chosen was the easy law-abiding one. It's time to grow some there Labour and tell the gangs and their criminals that there is no place for their destructive activities in our neighbourhoods. We want thriving communities not scared ones. Support our small businesses Labour our retailers—those trying so hard to make a living but who are under constant violent attacks which is threatening what needs to be a healthy economy as we push our heads above the COVID parapet. Police have publicly acknowledged that they are finding more and more illegally held firearms at their raids and we are all concerned about public and front-line police safety. Illegal firearm use is most certainly gang-fuelled. There is a lot to do with retaliation or utu. It involves drugs it involves violence it involves money and it's involving our women and our kids. Give that some consequence. One thing we can do with my bill is to make it financially painful to be caught in the illegal possession of a firearm when undertaking organised crime activities. I recall recently the two Jareds"—that's Jared Savage and Jarrod Gilbert. They wrote an excellent article detailing that one piece of legislation alone would not fix an intergenerational problem a problem made worse by drugs. Well ACT are committed to law and order and we're not going to stop here. Tony Severin has a rehabilitation bill in the ballot box that will ensure that prisoners are released on parole after they've completed a rehabilitation programme. We have a policy on intergenerational welfare use and with ram raids we certainly need to bring back the charter schools and have them re-established. We will align our police numbers to population growth to stop them from being a political football—as we first said—and we have a stack of other good ideas to rebuild our communities and have them thriving again. This is Labour's opportunity to actually get guns off the streets not from police-approved secure homes. Target the right people and make better use of taxpayer money during a cost of living crisis. Can they walk the talk and commit to truly focusing on the real perpetrators of gun crime? I commend this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to."