Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2088] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 This bill prohibits the wearing of gang insignia that endorses supports or identifies a prohibited criminal group as defined by clause 4 and as contained in a related by-law. The penalty for wearing such gang insignia is a $2000 fine and confiscation of the patch and there is a power to arrest for non-compliance. Aligned with this power is the power to stop and search vehicles in a public place or vehicles that have travelled through a designated banned insignia area. 
The previous Attorney-General Michael Cullen reported unfavourably in respect of the bill with a number of concerns but I am pleased to report to the Committee that advisers now confirm that the vast number of those concerns have been addressed by changes made by the Law and Order Committee with the help of the Labour members of course who showed some significant concern about and interest in this bill. They put their minds to it and some changes were made. Of course changes are also made by the Supplementary Order Paper that I have tabled in respect of tattoos. 
A number of concerns were raised about tattoos and the committee was split on this issue. Labour members with the support of New Zealand First insisted that tattoos be considered gang insignia so the National members who voted against that were voted down. Accordingly Supplementary Order Paper 12 deals with that particular issue. The point is that tattoos should not be considered gang insignia on the basis that somebody who has been tattooed but who now wants to comply with the law could be prevented from entering specified places depending upon where that tattoo was. For instance it would not be easy to cover up a tattoo on the face or one that was visible on the body without creating further intimidation. 
The purpose of the bill is to address intimidation of members of the public by gang members. It is all very well for the previous speaker Grant Robertson to talk about this bill’s superficial actions or superficial intent in respect of gangs. The point is that we are talking about addressing the problem of people who feel intimidated by members of the community who wear patches. We are talking about people who are forced to live among patched gang members or their associates. We are not trying to deal with the whole gang problem in this particular bill and the previous speaker is quite right in suggesting that to try to do so in this legislation would be superficial or ad hoc. But we are not trying to do that. This bill is just adding to the sheaf of legislation in respect of gangs that the National Government has brought forward in the last few months. And the Labour Party actually supports it. So it is a matter of just adding to the legislation rather than trying to address the whole problem. 
If the previous speaker’s point is that a little piece of legislation like this will not address some significant amount of offending we have to remember that no legislation on our statute book actually prevents offending. We have laws against murder rape and arson but people still murder rape and burn things down. The point is that this legislation is trying to deal to one particular issue and that is the intimidation that people feel when they are surrounded by patched gang members. 
I was speaking to the Mayor of Wanganui this morning. He has been in the isolation ward of the children’s wing of Wanganui Hospital with his daughter who is sick. He has been there for 6 days. This morning he walked out of his daughter’s room and saw a patched gang member walking down the corridor of the children’s wing of Wanganui Hospital. It is not as if the Mayor of Wanganui was intimidated by that but the point is what are we doing having patched gang members within our public buildings? For goodness’ sake what are we doing having patched gang members in the children’s ward of Wanganui Hospital? 
Some concern has been raised as to who could be included in the definition of “gangs”. I draw clause 4 to the attention of the Committee. Under its definition of “gang” it names specific gangs: “(a) Black Power Hell’s Angels Magogs Mothers Mongrel Mob Nomads or Tribesmen;”. Clause 4 goes on to describe a gang as “(b) any other specified organisation association or group of persons identified in a bylaw made under section 5”. Clause 5 refers to gang members associates or supporters individually or collectively promoting encouraging or engaging in a pattern of criminal activity. Members of the Daimler Club who happen to wear insignia on the back of their embroidered jackets will not be listed as gang members and could not be listed as gang members under this bill. 
Another point to make is that the good people of Wanganui have taken it upon themselves to take responsibility for something that exists right across New Zealand and that is the abusive nature of gangs their behaviour and the behaviour of their associates. This is common in every large city in every provincial city and in every reasonable-sized town within our country. The people of Wanganui have used the provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 enacted by the Labour Party when in Government to bring this legislation before the House. They have a right to do that. If the Labour Government never intended that to happen why on earth did its members not put in the Act that it was outside the scope of that Act to bring in criminal legislation to apply within a region? This is just democracy. 
The point made by the previous speaker Grant Robertson was that criminal law should not be done region by region but we have a couple of very good examples. One of them is our law relating to curfews which was imposed initially in Te Kuiti and was gradually rolled out around the country. Another one is the liquor ban legislation. It was brought in to deal with the problem at New Year’s Eve in certain areas and was then rolled out around the country. It is an example of criminal legislation that was enacted for one particular region but was then rolled out around the country and taken up by other areas. 
Yesterday morning the headline on the front page of the  
Wanganui Chronicle 
 stated “Man killed with axe over red hoodie court hears”. There is a depositions hearing and it relates to the death of Paul Kumeroa who was not a gang member but who on 23 September last year was walking down the street while wearing a red T-shirt. He was set upon by a carload of patch-wearing Black Power gang members and beaten up. He was thrown to the ground and hit over the back of the head with an axe and he died 2 days later. That is the nature of gang activity within our provincial towns. No doubt members opposite will say that this legislation would never have prevented that from happening because he was wearing only a red T-shirt and it did not have a gang insignia on it—in fact it was a gang colour or was perceived as such because it was red. The fact is that if gang insignia had been banned at the time if the gang members in the car that had been cruising around Castlecliff for some time had been tipped out—because of their gang insignia—by the cops using the powers that they will have under this legislation that incident could well have been prevented— 
Grant Robertson 
: How would it have prevented the crime? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Under this legislation the whole nature of policing gang members would be that if they were stopped and turned out if they were arrested if they were taken— 
Grant Robertson 
: They would lose their patches and they wouldn’t commit the crime. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No that is not the point—that if they lost their patches they would not continue to behave like that. But they would have been identified and they would have been aware of a police presence. That is the nature of policing. I am sure that even Mr Robertson can get his head round that. 
I want to make a couple of final points. The first one is about the youth survey that was conducted in Wanganui at the end of 2005 and reported in 2006. Young people were spoken to about their city and were asked to address a number of things. When they were asked about things that detract from Wanganui 49 percent of them listed the intimidation by gangs as their top priority. There were 778 responses to this question and 382 of them said that what made them feel the most unsafe in Wanganui was gang activity. The Wanganui District Council having placed this issue before its population through a referendum had an endorsement from that referendum to produce this legislation. The process requires that a local bill go out for public consultation. Having received no submissions—