Andersen Ginny; Goldsmith PaulHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Look I would just like to examine the legislation a bit further in terms of the outlay or the expense or the investment that the Government will need to put into this particular initiative or legislative change in terms of weighing up what the overall safety outcome is for New Zealanders and whether that's a good investment.This is a Government that has been really strong on giving very strong messages to a number of our NGOs who work in a variety of social services—that there is a clear expectation that has been delivered by this Government that they're required to demonstrate their return on investment by going through an organisation such as ImpactLab and having their spend assessed through looking at what each dollar provided will give in return. So given that this expectation has been provided to NGOs and those working in various social service provisions what work has the Government done on itself to be able to evidence what the cost of this is in terms of the taxpayer and in terms of law enforcement—the type of resources that Police will need to be putting into this? And what is the overall outcome in terms of safety that it delivers?I guess what I'm getting at is whether this is a wise investment of that Police resource because what it does appear to quite a few people out there—and I've received a few emails on this one—is that it's a cosmetic approach to addressing what is quite a deep-rooted problem within our community. It's a very superficial approach to simply remove the stuff that looks ugly and take away the stuff that looks scary but all it really does is drive it underground. And we only need to look back in history to when anything is made illegal whether that be a drug whether that be alcohol ways of subverting and driving that underground typically start to take shape.I'll add an additional point in there that the Minister may like to address because I think this is very relevant: as soon as you make something illegal it also becomes a whole lot more appealing to people who don't want to abide by the law. Technically you're going to make this even cooler for gangs to defy the State and to display gang patches because it is a direct challenge that you are entering into. And when you enter into essentially a proliferation sense—you're upping the ante they're upping the ante—you're engaging in this engagement with the overarching umbrella that this is going to make everyone safer but effectively it's just taking resources away from dismantling organised crime. You're taking resources away from pursuing money laundering from pursuing methamphetamine manufacture and distribution. You're taking resources away from family violence where young people are growing up in homes where they're witnessing repeat instances of family violence. Those are the long-term drivers of crime that enable criminal organisations to thrive and to embed their roots in our communities. The jackets they wear are merely a window of that.So I'm interested to understand from the Minister—you know he's a smart guy this Minister; he's done his homework. He can demonstrate to us where the evidence is that the taxpayers' money put into this is not in fact being diverted away from things that have a real impact on the drivers of crime. All this does appear to be to many New Zealanders is a cosmetic and superficial way of looking like more resources are being put into restoring law and order when in reality in the last Budget Police received $107 million less than in the previous Budget. This Government is giving Police reduced resource asking them to do more and expecting a different outcome and that does seem quite ludicrous.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well I think the member the Hon Ginny Andersen is a little bit confused on a couple of matters. In relation to taking away resources from other things that the Police might be doing to deal with organised crime of course nothing in this legislation changes the absolute independence of Police in deciding what the priorities are in an operational sense of how to enforce the law. The Police are able to make those judgments and in any circumstance where they put the resources in any given moment in relation to crime in a particular community that will be for the Police commissioner ultimately to decide. What we're giving here through this legislation is additional tools that the Police may use at their discretion.Secondly in relation to banning gang patches being sort of some minor thing on its own I'd make the point that I made to the previous speaker which is that yes that would be true if this was the only thing we were doing. But of course on no planet is this the only thing we are doing; this is part of a broader response from this Government to deal with violent crime in our community. And there are a number of things that this legislation does but it fits within a much broader response across Government dealing with long-term social issues dealing with housing dealing with education—all these other things that continue apace. So any suggestion that we're standing here saying all we need to do is ban gang patches and we've got the problem solved is of course ludicrous and nobody is making that suggestion.