Dalziel Lianne: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1103] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 As my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove has said Labour will be supporting the bill’s referral to the select committee. We are all very pleased that it is going to a select committee because of course the bills we looked at before Christmas were not given the opportunity for the public scrutiny they ought to have been given. I do not know why the Government somehow seems to think that it is OK to introduce measures because they have been perhaps scrutinised in a different environment and under a different set of circumstances or when they have not been subject to the degree of scrutiny one would expect of bills with significant changes to the law. I do not think it is a very good practice to do that but this bill is going to a select committee. 
My colleague makes a very good point which is that when a bill is introduced under urgency it does not sit on the Table for the 3 days it normally would. Therefore there is not the opportunity for the scrutiny and the discussion we all like to have in order to understand the particular features of a particular measure. I do not think that that is unreasonable—and the member on the other side of the House might laugh—but what goes around comes around I guess. I do not want to enter into a debate as to who did what when how and why because of course we will always find examples where different Governments have taken a particular approach. But I am saying that when we change the criminal law— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Or not do anything for 9 years. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well actually we did not introduce a lot of laws under urgency. For us to do that was on a very rare occasion indeed. Most of the laws we introduced over those 9 years—and this will definitely stand some scrutiny and checking by the Bills Office—lay on the Table for the 3 statutory days. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And went to a select committee. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: And they went to a select committee. This bill is going to a select committee but I do not think that anyone should completely underestimate the lack of opportunity for an Opposition to properly scrutinise the content of the legislation. I honestly believe that it is nice to see the pre-Christmas desire to get things passed through all stages somehow now taking a back seat but I wonder whether Mr Key is actually regretting his “100 days of action” promise because those who are interested in the process of Government are very concerned at what are smoke-and-mirror measures so that action is seen to be done rather than actually being done. 
Gangs have been a problem that successive Governments have had to confront ever since I have been here. I have been a member of Parliament since 1990 and I remember in that first term in office the huge debates that were held with Jim Bolger as the Prime Minister of New Zealand and Mike Moore as the Leader of the Opposition constantly battling over the issue of the then Government’s response to gangs. So I do not think anyone should pretend that this is a brand new issue that suddenly somehow needs to be addressed immediately after the holding of an election. 
But I think that the Government has failed to recognise that many gangs have fundamentally changed the way they operate. The underlying criminality of course behind their activities has not changed at all but a lot more gang members are wearing suits today than in the 1990s. They do not all hide behind intimidating gang-like structures but I can tell members that where they do live is equally impenetrable. Any law to rip down gang structures does not actually give us access to the property as Chester Borrows somehow seems to think. What it does do is deal with the outer vision of the problem without dealing with the underlying problem. It does not matter whether they are hidden behind intimidating gang-like structures or whether they are hidden from public view because their activities are essentially underground and they want to stay out of view. 
The amount of money involved in the trade in P far exceeds anything these gangs were ever able to extract from marijuana—way more. Why do members think gang members are suddenly wearing suits and driving around in cars instead of on the traditional Harley Davidsons? It is essentially because they are not out there causing the kinds of public mayhem they may have been involved in in the past—some of the gangs are but many are not—and the reason they are not out there causing those kinds of public mayhem is that they do not want the close police scrutiny that that obviously causes. The reason they do not want that is that it is far more lucrative for them to be involved in those underground nefarious activities than it is to be exposed to the kind of scrutiny the police would bring to bear. Gangs want their customers to be able to come and go as they please and they want to stay out of the public eye. 
That is one of the reasons why the previous Government said it would establish a commission of inquiry into organised gangs. It was not to be the starting point of the Government’s policy on organised crime. Rather it was necessary to wrap up the work we had already done by bringing in the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand. We had introduced new search and surveillance measures. We had anti - money laundering provisions in front of the House and further strengthening of the proceeds of crime legislation not to mention the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill which is on the Order Paper awaiting its second reading. 
 I ask the Minister why he does not progress that bill now—immediately. We are introducing a new bill when we have a bill already on the Order Paper that could proceed through all of its stages. It has been to a select committee. That level of scrutiny has been done. It is a bill that we could see immediate action on but we see a Government really wanting to be seen to be doing things rather than actually doing things. So I do not really buy the argument that this bill is the immediate priority when we have bills already in front of the House. 
There is another bill that the Minister I know has been supportive of which is the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill. That is something that could be progressed to a select committee. But I was surprised and shocked—stunned really—to find that it was not in the list of bills that we were going to deal with in this urgency motion because it feels to me that if we are looking at the whole issue of crime then we must see that alcohol lies at the heart of many of the challenges that are faced in our communities. 
In terms of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill which we are discussing at the moment as I have said—and as I think the Minister himself has accepted—many of the policies were in place with bills that the previous Government put in place. But it is really of concern to me that we have legislation brought to the House when we have not had time to give it the consideration it deserves. Yes the bill will go to a select committee and yes it will then be subject to the kind of scrutiny we want but I am slightly concerned that the Government seems to be addressing what the bill looks like from the outside. The bill almost feels like window dressing to me and it does not really tackle the depth of the problems we face with gangs. That is why I thought a commission of inquiry was such a positive suggestion by the previous Government because it really would have enabled the depth of scrutiny that simply is not available when we look just at the very narrow parameters of a bill that has been introduced into Parliament. So I encourage the Government in the context of this bill to reconsider its position on the previous Government’s announcement of a commission of inquiry. I do not personally think it would do any harm to have a commission of inquiry into organised criminal gangs in the context of proceeding with this legislation. 
Sandra Goudie 
: All hui no doey. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member Sandra Goudie chips in and I think proves the ignorance of the argument which is that there is a complete lack of understanding of the nature of the changes that have occurred in criminal activity. I think that the Labour Government finally really came on board with that with the establishment of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency and by understanding that the establishment of the Serious Fraud Office really took away those police officers who were able at a very high level to investigate organised crime into the sphere of financial crime. There has been a real disservice done by this incoming Government in not pursuing that particular policy of the previous Government because I think it was on the right track—a real beef-up of the resources of the police in this area and a focus on what is now the serious financial and organised crime associated with gangs who have pulled themselves apart from the old gang culture that I think we would all recognise but that now is very much a more insidious and pervasive part of our society. So I ask the Government to consider that in the context of this legislation.