Garrett David: Crimes Amendment Bill Local Government Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
Garrett David: Crimes Amendment Bill Local Government Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
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DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 As the last speaker predicted not surprisingly I rise to speak on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the three bills that have come out of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. I will start by respectfully differing slightly from my colleague Shane Ardern who used the word “thugs” which I also used in earlier speeches in the House on the original bill. That is an accurate word but a better word would be “outlaws”. These people are outlaws in the literal sense of that word. They shun the law they shun ordinary people and they make a gesture to ordinary people that was used by my generation and has now altered to an American version. 
I was talking to a judge of my acquaintance on a plane the other day. He told me about the evidence in a trial he had conducted of bugged conversations in which the gang members concerned laughed on the phone about how they were not going to work like the dupes out there in society and about how they would all be millionaires by the end of the year. They have contempt for everyone up there in here and outside this building. Gang members are outlaws. They are not our people whether they be brown white or whatever colour they may be and to make the claim that they are is simply silly and naive. 
This legislation brings in a number of measures that are long overdue. The previous Government had 9 years in which to do something about the gang problem in this country and Mr Hague was correct when he said that for 20 years or probably 30 years Governments have talked about being tough on gangs but have never done very much about that. This National-led Government has not even had 12 months in office and it has done plenty. We have given Wanganui the power to say “No more” to the gangs who terrorise people there by their simple appearance. Again I say to anyone who is silly and naive enough—and there are some in our party I have to say—to say gang members are only wearing their clothing and we should wait until they commit a crime that he or she should go to Wanganui and review the footage I have seen of a vicious beating that occurred at the local Work and Income office. That beating occurred just because two scum who were wearing different patches happened to encounter each other and under their ridiculous and deadly code that is what they were obliged to do. Clothing can and does directly lead to violence. 
ACT’s “three strikes” policy as part of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill will lock away those who do the greatest harm to society. These people are proud of their actions and proud to be members of the gangs with whom many of them associate. As I said in my speech earlier today in California the gang problem is very very much reduced. Anyone who is listening to this debate will recall reading about drive-by shootings in South Los Angeles. We are more likely to read about a drive-by shooting in Palmerston North now and the reason is that the gang leaders under the “three strikes” law in California are all in jail. That is why violent crime there has dropped by 62 percent since 1994. 
In an ideal world we would outlaw the gangs. I mentioned in my first reading speech that non-association laws have been passed and enforced in Germany against Fascist parties and in Ireland against the IRA. But apparently doing that will not work here because it is against people’s human rights. Forget the victims! It is more important to some members in this House to protect the rights of those whom we could only charitably and theoretically refer to as being human. I will say again more carefully what I said outside the House: the human rights that matter to me and to the members of our party are those of victims and potential victims. Those people’s human rights are more important than the right of scum to strut about whether they be wearing a Mongrel Mob patch or a laundered patch if they are Hell’s Angels. 
In the meantime if we cannot outlaw the gangs what we can do is to increase the jail time for these thugs these outlaws and keep the victims and potential victims amongst us safer for longer. This legislation doubles the maximum sentence for a conviction for involvement in organised criminal activity from 5 years to 10 years and that is long overdue. Why did someone not think of doing that earlier? Well people did but it is only now with a new Government that it is happening. 
Those who say that locking up criminals for longer periods is not the answer should try to tell that to the family of Fitzgerald Risati the Samoan choirboy I referred to in my second reading speech—and yes that is what he was; he was a choirboy—who was killed by Charlie Karaka because he looked like the guy who had stolen his gang patch earlier in the day. Being dumb in itself is not a crime but we are dealing with stupid dangerous people with idiotic dangerous customs that often result in senseless outcomes like the killing of Fitz Risati. Charlie Karaka’s gang like all the others has a code that if a member loses the gang patch that member must find and punish and if necessary kill the guy who took it. It does not matter whether the gang member gets it wrong as happened in that case. That is why an innocent man who was out celebrating his 24th birthday was killed in cold blood. 
To think there are some people here who say that the answer is to reason with these people! Gang members are as easy to reason with as the gangs that disguise themselves in nice clothes and hide in nice neighbourhoods as Mr Cosgrove referred to peddling P to their customers. The Hell’s Angels are still outlaws only they look and smell nicer than some other gangs. They still need to be dealt with not reasoned with. 
Some members in this House think that the answer is to fly gang leaders at taxpayers’ expense to a hui to ask them to please be nicer and stop hurting people to congratulate them on keeping their heads down a bit and also to ask them whether they are receiving all of their entitlements from the social welfare system. I say to Dr Sharples that if that approach worked then Rob Muldoon would have solved the gang problem 25 years ago. What we got from that approach were fences that we could put up for $5000 today but that we paid $100000 for. That is what happened as a result of Rob Muldoon saying we should talk to the Mongrel Mob and Black Power reason with them and give them jobs. Mr Muldoon did not solve the problem; instead it has escalated into a crisis only marginally less significant than the economic one that that gentleman left us with in 1984. 
Dr Sharples whom I respect and other members must realise that for the P sellers hurting people is their livelihood. They are not going to just stop doing that. Group hugs will not make them less antisocial; giving them work schemes will not make them less antisocial. Gangs are not legitimate organisations. ACT knows this. The people of New Zealand know this. We are proud to support any legislation that further reinforces that reality. 
Finally I will say again how impressed I was with the eloquent speech made by my colleague to my left Te Ururoa Flavell. The Maori Party unless its members have changed their minds in the last hour or so will vote against the bill. I do not want to go too far into the reasons for that but it seems to me that the Maori Party members are torn for cultural reasons as to just what to do. From the little that I know about Maori culture—and it is a little—I have some understanding of their dilemma. But the Greens have no such excuse. When I came to this place I learnt that the term for them was “Watermelon Greens”—green on the outside red on the inside. The situation is actually worse than that. The Greens are criminal sympathisers; that is what they are. They have voted against every single law and order bill in this Parliament—every single one. Mr Locke tried to claim the other day that the Greens had opposed a couple of laws because they are opposed to imprisonment as a response to offending. Superficially that is fair enough and it is not an uncommon view. The problem is that those particular bills did not carry an offence provision providing for imprisonment. So I say “Shame on the Green Party! Shame on the criminal sympathisers!”. ACT is happy to support these bills.