Goldsmith Paul; O'Connor GregHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker and the National Party will be supporting this bill the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill to the select committee. We support any efforts to strip gangs and other organised criminal gatherings or groups of their ill-gotten gains.It was funny to hear the Minister referring to the manifesto because this was legislation that was first announced with great fanfare back in May 2021—more than a year ago—and was supposed to be delivered before the end of the year. But it turned out that the previous Minister of Justice had checked out and didn't seem to be too interested in it. Then suddenly this year—in the context of a breakdown of law and order in many of our cities and a sense of chaos a massive increase in gang membership ram raiders and smash-and-grabbers all through our cities in Auckland and Hamilton over the weekend and a sense of the Government not being in control of the law and order situation in this country and in our cities—the Government has suddenly moved fast after its slumber to actually get on with this piece of legislation.The problem is of course it does have a sense of being slightly rushed and I turn to the impact summary and the officials say Oh dear well the analysis that we looked at on this bill has been constrained by a lack of consultation. The time frames in which the policy proposals have been prepared did not allow for a consultation beyond Government agencies affected. So we didn't talk to the stakeholders and so we don't really know too much about this." Then there was the lack of opportunity for further analysis. "With more opportunity for further analysis of the operation of the existing profit forfeiture orders justice might have been able to develop alternative options for the organised crime proposal." That I thought was a reasonably snide set of comments from officials pointing out the fact that if only they'd had a bit of time to actually work out what this proposal was and how it fitted with the current arrangements and how it was going to improve things they might have done some research. What is strange to understand is why if this was a commitment by Labour they hadn't got the officials on to it earlier and got themselves organised to come up with a well-designed and well-organised piece of legislation.Now we hope that this basis this legislation will do some good. It does ultimately reverse the onus of proof for people with large property which is either tainted or which has been owned by or held by a person that is associated with a member of an organised crime group and as well that can't show how they obtained that property legitimately. So that does give the police extra powers to hunt down and collect these properties in order to seize them—restrain them first; and then seize them secondly—and return that money to the people of New Zealand so that they can more effectively prosecute other people and send a clear message that crime doesn't pay. So it may well work and time will tell.But it's interesting to see that Crown Law had a look at this in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and did notice that the legislation does impact upon freedom of association although it's not clear just what an "associate" means. We've seen that Cabinet has made some subsequent changes and tightened up the definition of "associate" so it doesn't mean a mere acquaintance and that seems about right. But just how wide the net for associates is is a moot point and we're very much looking forward to the select committee process in order to better understand that. Then if they are an associate the second thing was—which was a rather strange piece of advice from Crown Law. They then argued about the threshold and the Crown Law people said "Well if the threshold was $50000 or $30000 that might be all right because it would indicate that there's been some serious criminal activity. But if it was lower—if it was $10000—then maybe it wasn't sufficiently serious in order to justify the breach to the freedom of association rules."That was interesting. We understand that there was a big fight within Cabinet and the Cabinet committees about this threshold level because the slight problem we have is that we're going to be tough on the gangs we're going to sort them out—so the Government says belatedly after a long period of time—we're going to show them who's boss but when it comes to the many Harley-Davidsons and other bikes that are roaring up and down our streets and terrorising neighbourhoods and great swarms going down the motorway and making people nervous because it's all designed to intimidate when it comes to those Harley-Davidsons most of them are probably just a little bit under that $30000 threshold. And so people are left wondering "Well what does this bill mean?" Are any of the Harley-Davidsons going to be collected? Is any of the bling that people associate with these gang members who are out there threatening and intimidating actually going to be taken?That's not clear and it shows to my mind just another example of the kind of mixed messages that we get from the Government. They want to be seen to be tough but they're not really sure that they actually want to be. They want to do lots of drug rehabilitation programmes and things with gang members but they also want to look like they're being tough on them and so people are confused. There's not a clear message coming through from this Government around what the relationship is with gangs which have increased very significantly—about 40 percent in the last few years—under this Government. So the gangs are recruiting faster than the police and that's part of the reason why New Zealanders are not feeling safe in their communities.I mean what are the issues that people raise with you when you're on the streets in Auckland? Well first they're worried about the cost of living crisis and they're worried about how they're going to pay for their cheese and all the other things like that. But secondly they're worried about the breakdown in law and order in our cities. They're worried about that and they're concerned about it. If they've got kids working in retail in St Lukes Mall or in Newmarket Mall or anything like that they're worried about that. They're worried about whether they might be going to encounter another smash-and-grab or a hit and run or a ram raid or all the things that seem to be going on where people face no consequences.So we on this side of the House are prepared to support this piece of legislation at its first reading. We want to hear the select committee reports on it. We want to hear from people in the community about how this works because we broadly speaking agree with any effort to make it tougher on gangs and to strip them of their ill-gotten gains. But we do have questions about it. We also make the point that it's got to be part of a clear consistent and forceful response to gangs in our country. What we haven't seen from this Government is a clear consistent and forceful response to gangs. What we see is not much for five years then a panic and a few things thrown out some weak firearm protection orders. Now we've got this bill around gangs; we've got another one that was announced at the same time—clearly in relation to a sense that they were well behind the eight ball on this issue and they want to be seen to be making better progress. We support them in that; they do need to make better progress because the most important thing for all New Zealanders is that they feel safe in their communities and in their homes and in their shopping malls and in their streets and they're not feeling intimidated. And so we do need to be much more rigorous in pushing back. So that's why we're interested to see that.We're puzzled a bit by the KiwiSaver. I'm not too sure that too many gang members are greatly focused on their KiwiSaver accounts but you know there is an issue there and they've just kind of thrown this into the mix. We wouldn't want KiwiSaver funds to be some kind of safe haven for criminals to put their funds. And so yes we agree with looking at that but we do make the point that when you're scrambling around to be seen to be doing something on law and order actually the fundamental things that the Government needs to be focusing on is making sure that there is a very clear and consistent message from Government that society doesn't tolerate these sorts of things and there are consequences for illegal behaviour.That's what people are worried about. This is what people are frustrated by particularly with the youth offenders when they see all this stuff going on. The most consistent feedback or concern that you hear is "Well there's just no consequences for these kids. They go off they do it and they wind up having a family conference. They get patted on the head and 'We'll see you again next weekend.' " There are no consequences and that message has filtered through and is what is underlying the sense of chaos and disorder that we have at the moment. Similarly with gangs there are a few more consequences for gangs but what has happened is that there hasn't been that consistent clear message from Government. It's been mixed: "We'll give a million or so to gang associates down in Hawke's Bay to do some drug rehabilitation. We'll do some other stuff. We'll do this and we'll go and meet with them. The Ministers will meet with them. We'll talk with them. We'll do all sorts of other stuff." And then of all the things that the justice Minister—the previous justice Minister—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has come to an end."