Pugh Maureen; Webb DuncanPart 3 Dispersal notices and non-consorting orders CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members the committee is resumed. Members when we rose for the dinner break we had concluded the debate on Part 2. We now come to Part 3. This is the debate on clauses 9 to 26 Dispersal notices and non-consorting orders". The question is that Part 3 stand part.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): The Minister might not be surprised to know that I have a number of Amendment Papers in respect of discrete matters here. I must say I was really disappointed that in respect of three of those Amendment Papers—and none of them are trivial papers. None of them are kind of joke papers. They're all making reasonable points that the Minister may or may not agree with and in respect of three of them he didn't mention them. So I'm hopeful that when we come to talk about those further Amendment Papers he will at least have the decency to mention the paper and mention his position on it and perhaps he can find it in his heart to give a reason why he takes the position he does.I see this part deals largely with dispersal orders and non-consorting orders. Now it's well recognised. The Attorney-General recognises that these are both limits on freedom of association and that's really important to note at the outset so the fundamental point being that any limit must be justified in a free and democratic society to be New Zealand Bill of Rights Act compliant. The Attorney-General says "No that's not the case." I'll come in particular to why that is the case but I guess my first point that I'd like the Minister to address is actually a practical one because I'd like him to address how this is actually going to work because there are two sides to this. Firstly this is about breaking up intimidating gatherings and so the point is that it's about doing something in the moment. Then the second point is that the archetype that they've been talking about is these large gatherings such as sort of the motorcades around tangi and things like that. It's pretty well established that there are not the police resources in many modest towns and provincial centres to break up a big motorcade and once that motorcade has come and gone the whole purpose of a dispersal order is expired so you've got a strange situation where you can't do it when it's happening because you haven't got the resources and then once it's occurred it doesn't matter anymore anyway because it's of historical significance only.Now I know in the legislation—and I'll talk about it in more detail when I come to Amendment Papers—it talks about issuing dispersal notices after the event has happened but given the purpose of this is not to punish it's really important that this isn't punitive because if it is it's criminal and we need to have a whole different framework for it. This is actually protective of the community and so we don't take steps to limit human rights which aren't directly protective of the community. So if there's been a gathering and then the next day the police officer goes and issues a dispersal notice that's not protective; that's punitive. Because unless it's clear there's an intention—and I don't know how it would be clear. But unless it's clear that there's an intention to have another gathering which is disruptive in the future then you're just doing it essentially out of spite.Now don't get me wrong gang members who are intimidating in large groups I get the problem but once again it's a totally ham-fisted approach and I really don't understand how on earth you're going to make this work. There are a whole lot of other details around there in terms of how we effect service on gang members and the really significant problems with that but the first question I have that I'd like the Minister to address—and I'll keep my contributions short in so far as I can so that he can respond in the way he anticipated—is how it's going to work."