Jones Shane: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Gangs and Organised Crime Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:658;Page:7522] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson for providing me with the opportunity to make a short contribution on the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. I really enjoyed hearing my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell speak about the Murupara experience but for me it reveals a deep ambiguity about where those Maori politicians in this Chamber stand in relation to gangs. 
I agree with a community that binds together and seeks to censure or exclude criminals—because that is what the gangs are. Members should stop calling them “our people”. They are not our people. Our people do not go to jail for killing teenage boys. Our people do not go to jail for raping and for selling P and celebrating that as a mark of distinction and success. They are not our people. In fact they are not people. We have a word for that kind of thing in Maori. It is “taurekareka”. They are the slaves that before Christianity would have been dispatched without a sliver of a doubt—because that is how they are treating those teenagers in Murupara. 
If communities believe that by relying exclusively on those proud noble traditions that define us as Maori such as rahui we will penetrate that fog of criminality I have news for them. Those people will understand only one thing: ringa kaha the full force of the law. It will offend a number of us in this Chamber to think that we as New Zealanders will have to embrace that level of harshness but if we do not those of us who are condemned to live with those taurekarekas have to worry when our daughters our sons our mokos and our families go about their lawful duties and activities. Will they fall prey to those locusts? 
So yes there is a small glimmer of hope in Murupara. I was at a tangi where I heard a Mr Goldsmith of Murupara an elder who lived and worked with my Ngapuhi relations in South Auckland. He explained very vividly the dilemma. How can they continue to live in Murupara without full access or recourse to the police? They do not want to take the law into their own hands. He gave a very good account. 
I say to every marae and every Maori community that if they are not prepared to shun those people they will infiltrate their communities and ruin their lives. It may not happen in the more leafy suburbs of Auckland although Paul Holmes can give an account that would suggest something slightly different. Those of us who live in the provinces and see how those people live on a regular basis should mark my words. We need to take a very staunch approach to them and stop regarding them as our people. To me that not only corrupts the notion that we as Maori want to celebrate kinship but it provides them with a new level of cover and camouflage. 
Members of the Maori Party must step away from the moral ambiguity they have over this. They will not support this bill. I say: “Shame on them!” They should not come to this Chamber and give us lectures about how kaumatua and kuia are showing courage in the face of killers—because within those gangs are the killers of those teenage children—when they do not have the boldness or courage to support this bill. That is why I hope that the moral ambiguity the Maori Party has is fatal in a political sense. Kia ora tatau.