Turia Tariana: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
Turia Tariana: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15759] 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. You know sometimes I have to remind myself that it is election year this year and that we can expect that gangs graffiti and anything else that upsets the wider public will be paramount in this House and that members will vote for it on that basis. But segregation on the basis of insignia has a tragic history dating to before World War II in which particular groups targeted for extermination by the Nazi regime were categorised according to specific signs and symbols. Each prisoner was treated according to the coloured triangle that represented his or her status in the social hierarchy of the concentration camps. A green triangle marked the prisoner as a criminal; political prisoners wore a red triangle; two yellow triangles designated a Jewish prisoner; and the pink triangle was for homosexuals. A yellow Star of David under a pink triangle marked the lowest of the low: a gay Jew. Today many of those symbols have been reclaimed by these groups as a marker of pride of solidarity of unity and of the ultimate resistance against an oppressive regime that forced them out. 
I have been thinking of this history as I consider the move to authorise the Wanganui District Council to outlaw people whose crime in the context of this bill is to wear gang insignia—the signs and symbols that demonstrate their membership of a particular group. In this bill particular groups are targeted for segregation yet it is interesting to note that many gang organisations are in fact exempted from this legislation. When a bill starts to list specific groups for targeting there is always the danger in that in listing some it misses out others. The sponsor of the bill should either list all of the 88 gangs that may come into this territory as part of its target group or at the very least provide a justification for why certain groups are named and others are not. 
The key issue is that all this bill does is exclude suppress prohibit and ban. All it does is close our eyes and put up walls to force our problems out of sight and out of mind. Banning people by virtue of the bulldog on their back will not address the real issues that this bill is supposedly about. If the problem is violence then let us work together on strategies amongst our communities to achieve mauri ora for all the whanau. If the problem is criminal offending then there are laws to address that too so let us look into the causes of crimes in the first instance be they poverty racism alienation unemployment or drug and alcohol abuse. 
The problem according to the title of this bill appears to be more about the dress code of gangs than it is about the behaviour of its members. Let us be quite clear. We cannot simply push people out of town and hope that the extent of violence and offending amongst some of our communities will disappear. We must face up to the problems without focusing on the clothes gang members wear. We have heard people talk here today about the behaviour of gang members of the rape and all the dreadful crimes they commit. I am certainly not here to defend any of that behaviour but it would be interesting to talk with Women’s Refuge to find out who in fact commits the majority of rapes in this country. We might be surprised to find that it is not necessarily the gang members. 
I am aware that even on the council that is promoting this bill there has been heated opposition to it from councillors Barbara Bullock Sue Westwood and Ray Stevens. I mihi to their leadership in speaking out against this bill while at the same time making a commitment to address any issues that are associated with gang activities in Wanganui. I support that. 
The Maori Party will not support a bill that targets gang regalia or young people as the problem without looking at a comprehensive strategy to restore peace to our communities. I have lived in Wanganui all my life and you know it is actually quite rare to see the gangs uptown in Wanganui. It is not something that happens every day. In fact members of the business community came out and said it was not the most significant issue for them. So maybe we should talk to the people who are most affected by this behaviour rather than deciding that prohibiting people from wearing particular clothes will make one iota of difference. It will not.