SpeechPUBLIC FINANCE (PROHIBITION ON PROVIDING PUBLIC FUNDS TO GANGS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 6 April.CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): I rise on behalf of ACT to speak to the Public Finance (Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs) Amendment Bill. The bill arises as a result of the Government giving a gang $2.7 million towards a drug rehabilitation programme. It all sounds pretty reasonable—to make sure Government agencies don't go off on a whim and fund criminal organisations to provide a service that in anyone's books would seem to be a conflict of interest.The president of the Police Association at the time said It is difficult to understand how those who promote the need for drug rehabilitation seem blind to the dreadful optics of this … scenario let alone have faith in this multi-million-dollar scheme to do anything but line the pockets of key gang leaders." You wouldn't give a dodgy publican almost $3 million to fix the alcoholics coming through his door. It's not in his best interests. He needs them to drink and spend their money in his establishment.I was really disappointed—actually I was disgusted—at the speeches from the Government and the Green Party who all showed that if you don't agree with them you're nasty full of venom and only representing a small part of the community the taxpayer being one part of that community. And of course the go-to if you don't agree with everything this Government says and does—you're racist. It never ceases to amaze me how fixated this Government is with race. This is a bill about gangs—gangs drugs and taxpayers' money: simple. Lectures about gangs from chardonnay socialists who haven't been in a public bar let alone experienced the violence and trauma that the members of this part of society cause mean nothing. I have seen it: families torn apart kids left to fend for themselves dealing with the women's refuge victim support and scene-guarding at shootings and outside hospital rooms. That's the reality of what we're dealing with in this bill.But what rhetoric did we hear from the Labour-led experts? "They are us." We heard that "they are my family". If that's the case if they're not peddling drugs and causing harm in the community then it doesn't concern you. If they are I hope you're doing something about it. And somehow not giving money to criminal organisations means taking education food away from the kids even vaccinations—it's just nuts. We heard what we need to say to the gangs. We need to ask them "How can I serve your community a community I don't know well but a community I need to know more about? How can I become connected? Who in your community can reach out to me and help me do that?" Just bizarre. Get out of your office go for a walk down Courtney Place or Queen Street and see whether this approach is working. They're just pathetic words that show us how out of touch this Government is. It reminds me of when I was a policeman in Wellington and we caught a serial thief who stole $28000 worth of stuff from various department stores around Wellington. We actually had to hire a hall in Kilbirnie to put it all in. When the thief was identifying to me which store she had stolen things from I didn't look too impressed. She looked at me and said "Why are you looking at me like I'm a thief?" She really didn't get it. It wasn't her fault. She had absolutely zero personal responsibility. This is an attitude that is not only condoned by this Government when dealing with gangs but encouraged. But the diatribe that sunk to new lows in my 18 months of experience in this place came from in the immortal words of Gerry Rafferty the clowns to my left; the despicable but absolutely predictable reference to race from start to finish must make the public of New Zealand wonder what actually goes on inside the heads of some politicians in this House. As comedian Billy Connolly once said "If your greatest claim to fame is your ethnicity you're in deep trouble." Unfortunately ethnicity is all this Government and its allies see. It is so sad. This bill is common sense. Government agencies should not give taxpayers' money to criminal organisations. Scrutiny must be impeccable and in this case it wasn't. ACT fully supports this bill."