Faafoi Kris: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 07 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12474. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):It is a shame that we had to endure that speech from Scott Simpson after what I thought were two very good speeches to the House around this Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. We on this side of the House take great offence to that member saying that we are soft on crime. We are not soft on crime. If the other side of the House looked at this piece of legislation it is something that wants to give the appearance of being tough on crime but that does not do that.Having said that I do want to acknowledge Mark Mitchell the member in charge of the bill. I think he gave a very heartfelt speech. I must admit that I agreed with a lot of it. He did say that the spirit of this bill wants to crack down on a lot of the concerns that I think a lot of the members in this House have around the offending that gangs do in our communities. We do not like any of it. We certainly know as Mr Goff said that gangs are responsible for a lot of the drug dealing that happens in our communities. We know that alcohol-fuelled violence from gangs can be horrific and a number of instances have been mentioned already in this House.But I want to acknowledge that although Mark Mitchell talked about the spirit of the bill on this side of the House we do not believe that the substance of the bill actually attacks the real issue that is at hand which is really cracking down on gangs. Mr Mitchell said that there are 34 known gangs that are targeted within this bill and the bill does have the ability to broaden that out via an Order in Council.I think I am stealing the words of Phil Goff in the minority report from the Labour Party within this bill when I say that Labour has no truck with gangs. For that side of the House to use petty politics to try to accuse this side of the House of being soft on crimes and soft on gangs is offensive.Hon Member: You started it.KRIS FAAFOI: “You started it.”—that is a rather grown-up retort! “You started it.”—that is what we get from the other side of the House.I do agree with Mark Mitchell that a lot of the harm has been caused by gangs in our community but we are not going to do anything substantive about that by changing the dress code of gangs. We are not going to do anything substantive about gangs in our communities by doing that. I think there is a valid concern in our communities about saying to gangs that we are going to change their dress code. It has already been said during this debate—by Mr Goff I believe—that there are already statutes that provide the ability for the likes of the police other Government departments and schools to take action if they do not want gang members arriving on their premises with gang patches.I am not sure whether this reading will be completed by the dinner break but I make an offer to anyone on the other side of the House to get in my car during the dinner break and come with me to the Porirua Police Station where it says when you walk in “No gang patches allowed.” So already there are measures in place. I am quite happy to take Mark Mitchell and anyone else. Scott Simpson might want to come along but he probably will not take up that offer. I invite those members across the other side of the House. If they would like to come with me during the dinner break to the Porirua Police Station I will show them that measures are already available to the police via laws that are already in place to prevent gang patches being taken into Government departments like police stations or schools.I do empathise with the likes of people from the schools in Murupara who came and gave submissions to the Law and Order Committee that gangs in their communities certainly are a problem. They certainly are in my community. I was out watching some league the other day and I got some grief from them. I do not care for gangs—I do not care for gangs at all—but if we are going to take some real substantive action against gangs in our communities we cannot just give our communities this piece of legislation which I think does not do anything substantive towards making sure we crack down on the actions of gangs.One other thing we need to be aware of is that we need to reduce the number of people and especially our young ones who enter our gangs. One of the big factors in recruitment in gangs is youth unemployment. Certainly a concern for me is the high rate of Pacific unemployment. We have seen today that the level of Pacific unemployment has gone up from 15.2 percent to 16.3 percent. If this Government was serious about cracking down on gangs and stopping young people like young Pacific Islanders entering gangs it would do something to give those young people an opportunity for employment—an opportunity for employment—so that those young people did not have to turn to gangs as an alternative to not having a job.I just want to repeat that statistic: Pacific unemployment at the moment is at 16.3 percent—that is nearly one in five Pacific Islanders around this country does not have a job. So if this Government was serious and there is an increasing problem with young Pacific Island people especially getting into gangs in Auckland and in South Auckland—and Mr Mitchell said that this bill was not a silver bullet—it would take much more substantive action than changing the dress code of gangs. It would mean looking at what is driving the membership of gangs and certainly unemployment is one of those drivers.I also want to turn to the ability of the police to police this new law. Mr Goff has already mentioned that the front-line staff numbers have been reduced by somewhere in the area north of 400. We are already seeing front-line police resourcing under extreme pressure and having this heaped on them is another pressure that we are putting on them. The police budget in real terms is going to be cut by somewhere around $110 million over the next 4 years. So we are putting extra pressure on our police and do not forget that this is a police force that Mr John Key at the time of the 2011 election saidhad plenty of time on its hands. That was because it was going and investigating Winston Peters’ phone records. This is a police force that allegedly has got plenty of time on its hands so it is getting fewer cops on the front line and is having its budget cut—budget cut. That is not—ha I am not going to repeat that. So our police are under extreme pressure and this is just something else that they are going to have to do that will be of very little substance to the communities which want some substantive action on gangs.The anomalies that Phil Goff has pointed out are strange. There is the fact that you can be under a council-owned bus stop wearing a patch and that is an offence but if you were to be 2 or 3 metres to the left or the right of that bus stop and not under that bus shelter you would not be committing an offence. So the anomalies in this bill have not been addressed since its introduction. They are still within the bill. That is another reason the farcical nature of this Government’s attempt to try to look tough on crime certainly has not been addressed with this bill.To finish off can I just go back to the contribution from Mark Mitchell. He is someone who has been a police officer and I very much respect that. He is someone in this House whom I very much respect and he has told us of his concerns about the offending that gang members do in our community. We on this side of the House share those concerns Mr Mitchell and I congratulate you on the way in which since you have taken over this bill you have tried to bridge the gap I would say between our differences on this bill. But since then—and certainly since the beginning since Todd McClay introduced this bill—the gulf between what is in this bill and what we would want to see in terms of some serious substantive action against gangs has not been able to be bridged.I just want to reiterate that we on this side of the House have no truck with gangs. We know that they are in our communities selling drugs to people who are certainly disadvantaged and who are the last people who should be targeted to sell drugs to. We know that gangs are committing crimes. But if we are going to be real and take some substantive action against gangs in our community we would want to see something a lot more substantive than this. We do not want to see a piece of legislation that in my opinion serves only a very shallow public political purpose—to try to make it look like this Government is tough on gangs. We should be doing something against gangs not looking like we are doing something against gangs.Debate interrupted.