Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much Look I'd just like to commend the Minister too on the regulatory impact statement. It's got some really good evidence there and some of the answers that we've been actually seeking over the course of the introduction of this bill and some of the things are really helpful. One of the questions that I've consistently been asking—particularly the Minister of Police—was: how will we know that these measures actually will stop people wanting to be in a gang and how will that work effectively? And the only evidence I was able to ascertain or to sort of gain from him was that he went to on a trip to Australia and he met with his counterpart I think over in New South Wales. He said that that day he met with him on the front page of the paper was an article that showed that the lead member of the Rebels had in fact left the gang purely because these new laws had made his life so hard that he couldn't take it anymore and he was leaving the gang. And when we went back to find that article that was the lead story in the paper what that article actually described was a lot of internal tensions within the Rebels particularly them killing each other quite a bit and that was the key driving factor for that lead gang member to leave the gang not the non-consorting laws that had been introduced.So I think it's really good that we've got some analysis here on the evidence of what did happen in Australia and whether it's worked or not. And I think the Australian examples really give us some insights as to how this law might play out in New Zealand. The New South Wales ombudsman actually recommended to narrow the scope of the existing non-consorting laws so that they could only really target that serious and organised crime. And they noted that this would likely reduce inappropriate or unnecessary use of laws—essentially wasting police time—and crack down on the stuff that really works. And so did Queensland—they agreed with this as well. In fact the Queensland Organised Crime Commission of Inquiry found that its states' focus on gangs had really resulted in a lack of visibility in other areas of organised criminal activity. And that's been one of our key concerns too—that the manufacturer and distribution of methamphetamine is in fact far more harmful than seeing a gang patch. And we want to make sure that this Government is not only laser focused" on restoring law and order but also on crippling the criminal networks that utilise drugs money laundering and general criminal purposes to wreak havoc in our communities.So what they noted in the Queensland report was that gang members accounted for less than 1 percent of overall offending in Queensland and that included the rate of charges for drug offending. And that's pretty much comparable to what we see in New Zealand and that's noted in paragraph 24 as well. So I guess what I'm seeking from the Minister is: will he be able to give a level of reassurance to New Zealanders that we won't be just looking tough and won't be just emailing gang members to go away and take their patches off but also that resources in police which we know are stretched will also be focusing on the drivers of crime which is methamphetamine which is those serious violent offences that happen in homes and see young people growing up where family and sexual violence can be normalised?These are the drivers of crime and it is a valid concern on this side of the House that we will end up like Australian states. And they've noted that these non-consorting orders merely displaced the problem the balloon effect—you squeeze it and it just pops out in another place. Queensland's statistics indicated it did have a slight reduction in membership in the two years following the introduction of the two 2013 law. But largely it seemed they all moved over the border into other states where they didn't have those laws. New Zealand doesn't have borders so what's going to happen here? It'll be interesting to see how this plays out and it will be also interesting to see how it plays out—and the Minister may want to comment on this—particularly in those parts of New Zealand that are carrying vacancies now of police officers where we have one or two police stations with that number of police officers in how they will be able to still do their job and also enforce this law in a way that New Zealanders have confidence in our police service that they're able to enforce this law.And I think that's a risk the Minister may want to speak to. If we have a law that is unable to be enforced in some parts of New Zealand does that potentially undermine not only the credibility of our police service but also our very legal structure?"