Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to stand and take a call on the second reading of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill. To say that the Justice Committee as a whole navigated its way through and thought that we'd come up with a good compromise around the cumulative value on goods is complete and utter nonsense. If they want to get serious about this bill they have to drop the threshold and we made that point time and time and time again—not just to $10000. Actually you don't even need a threshold in this bill. If you want it to be effective—if you actually want to start hitting the gangs—remove the threshold. It's a massive loophole there for them.This is the problem: with all the legislation that this Government—this soft on crime Labour Government—brings to this House it's always doing as little as possible. It's always sitting on the fringes whether it be a firearms prohibition order—which by the way I don't even think has been used; that's got no new warrantless search power—or whether it be this bill the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill which has got a $30000 threshold. What did the police say? I'd invite the next Government speaker to actually tell us what the police told the committee. The police were very clear. The police Minister at the time—now the Prime Minister—wanted the threshold dropped. The police didn't want the threshold at $30000. Why is the threshold still at $30000?They were very clear that if you want this legislation to be effective if you really want us to clamp down on the gangs—and this is the real rub. This is the real rub: you read the report and they say that in 2020 the incoming Labour Government were very serious about clamping down on gangs. Then you had Iain Lees-Galloway sitting over there squawking like a raptor when we said that we wanted to introduce a taskforce that would be effective and start to deal to the gangs. We've seen over a 50 percent increase in them. We're seeing violent gang crime every day. I read in the media today that there was a mother with her badly injured son in the critical care unit in Christchurch that was taken over by the gangs. They blocked off their own parking. Every week we see them taking over public spaces and public roads. We see them intimidating and abusing members of the public.This problem has got out of control under a soft on crime Labour Government. What is their answer to it? Well the first answer was this: every—Anna Lorck: Stop saying that.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Stop saying what? Soft on crime? Own it—own it. You get up and take a call and tell us why the rest of the country when they're asked see you as soft on crime. I'll tell you why: they've watched for the last five or six years a massive increase in gang numbers a massive increase in gang violence a massive increase in youth and juvenile offending. That didn't just suddenly happen. You might sit in the ivory tower down here—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Don't bring the Speaker into the debate.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry Madam Speaker. The member might sit in the ivory tower down in Wellington. Go back into your own electorate and talk to the people there and ask them whether they feel safe. They'll tell you that they don't feel safe. I'll tell you why they don't feel safe: it's because the Mongrel Mob think that they run the town. The Mongrel Mob are out there carrying firearms and the Mongrel Mob are out there assaulting looting and intimidating people in your town. That's how the people feel. I don't know if you were at the public meeting on Tuesday last week. I don't think you were. I don't think the member was there.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK. Order! The member is an experienced member. I'd ask him to come back to the bill. He has talked around organised crime but I want him to be a bit closer to the second reading part of this bill. I ask the member not to bring the Speaker into the debate. It's difficult; I know the House is passionate and that's great.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry Madam Speaker. So what's one of the best things that the member could do to actually start to have an impact on the Mongrel Mob in the Hawke's Bay that are terrorising the community up there?Hon David Bennett: Lock 'em up!Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well yeah lock them up. That's right. David Bennett is 100 percent right. Lock them up. Have some consequences. That's the first thing. But do you know what you could do? You could actually get rid of the threshold in this bill. You could make it much easier for your local police officers to go out and actually start to seize some of these assets. The member could make it much easier for her local police to go out there and start seizing assets from these gangs. So why not put the energy into actually supporting that—speaking to her colleagues and actually getting support inside the select committee to make the change that this bill needs?They don't like being referred to as soft on crime" but I'm sorry the reason why this bill is in front of the select committee the reason why this bill is in the House is because it's some weak vacuous attempt by this Government to try and make up and to try and fix a problem that they know they've created over the last five or six years. It's exactly the same as the last weak bill that they brought into this House which was the firearms prohibition orders bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Stick to the bill.Hon MARK MITCHELL: I'd like to know how many times that's been used. And by the way while the member was talking about bills being brought into this House how many bills has this Labour Government voted down that National members have brought into the House in the last six years?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Let's stick to this bill. The member has strayed wide enough and far enough and I need him to speak in the second reading on the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Speaker. Well it's very hard to draw this bill out and I'll tell you why: because it's useless. Unless they drop that threshold from $30000 to nothing—and we'll be working very hard to do that—this is a useless bill. It's not going to get used. It's like the other legislation they've brought through here; it's vacuous. It's on the fringes. It really doesn't do much.So although we're in this situation where actually we are going to support anything that comes through that may make a difference—and maybe there's an outside chance that the odd asset might be seized or something might be done with this—and we will support it for me personally unless we drop the threshold on this bill it's not even worth the paper that it's actually written on. I think that history will show that it's not just this bill; it's previous bills. We will continue to work to try and get the threshold lowered in this bill. I'd encourage my colleagues on the select committee—and the member from Hawke's Bay to continue to try and lobby her colleagues to get the threshold lowered on this bill and to give her local police the tools that they really need to start dealing to the gangs. Thank you Madam Speaker."