Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15764] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am very pleased to stand at the end of this debate on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill which I know will draw insurmountable support. Yet I am sorry that the bill has not received the support of all parties and I wish to address some of the matters raised in the debate on it. I heard the speech by the Hon Tariana Turia and the comments she made without malice that the groups persecuted in World War II also wore insignia and were persecuted for the insignia they wore. But we have to point out that what separates the Mongrel Mob Black Power and Hell’s Angels from the groups persecuted in World War II is that the gangs apply their own insignia whereas those groups in World War II had the insignia applied by the Germans who went on to persecute them. The suggestion that the Mongrel Mob Black Power and Hell’s Angels fit into the same class as persecuted Jews does not wash. 
There are very few laws created by this House that fully address the problems to which they are targeted. Does the legislation that criminalises murder and rape prevent killing and sexual abuse? No it does not and it is ridiculous to suggest that it does. So is it then stupid to suggest that legislation targeted towards a particular issue in a community is wrong? This legislation is a tool desired by the police and Wanganui people to be applied to the population or the community residing in Wanganui just as the legislation that bans other criminal behaviour is a tool used to combat that behaviour. 
Mr Rodney Hide said that the successful passage of this bill would see gang members not being allowed to wear patches in Wanganui but they could wear them anywhere else. It probably comes as no surprise to him that a lot of gang members stop to take off their patches before they enter another town and put them back on when they leave it because what do you know they are outnumbered and intimidated by the members of other gangs and the patches they wear. Gang members take off their patches when they enter other towns and put them back on when they leave. 
I have had a lot to do with gangs over the years. I have had a few scraps. I have had my police car pelted with bottles and clubs as gang members have run across the road towards me and I was scared stiff. I have been surrounded in gang headquarters and fought my retreat relatively honourably with a bloody nose and the odd bruise to show for it. At other times I have sat down had a cup of coffee and nutted out protocols for engagement with gangs. I am under no illusions about gangs. 
I am pleased the Labour Party has seen good sense in supporting this bill. I am under no illusions about that either necessarily and I would have liked to think that Labour would support this legislation earlier in the election cycle. 
This bill was initiated and drafted by the Wanganui District Council which did all it could to obtain—and it did obtain—local support for the measure even before the mandatory public process started. It cannot be legislated that all voters in a community will turn out on voting day and vote in a referendum but in this case over half of them did and over 65 percent of those who turned out supported the proposal that this bill be forwarded to Parliament for enactment. Only after that did the council put the bill through the public process where the public were again given the opportunity to comment on the bill’s process—which they did. Yes there are people who are concerned about the progress of this bill through the House. A lot of them are business people who are concerned about the effect on their businesses. However it is often the case that when a community accepts and owns that it has a problem and take steps in a public manner to take responsibility for that problem then it draws the attention of others who without seeing the logs in their own eyes manage to discern the specks in others’. That is the situation that Wanganui finds itself in. 
I am pleased to be the sponsor of this bill from the Wanganui District Council.