Hide Rodney: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
Hide Rodney: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15761] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I am so pleased that Mr Chester Borrows has relieved me of the obligation of voting for this shocking Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I said that the ACT party would vote for the bill to go to a select committee. We could never vote for its third reading but I thought the debate would be useful. But now Labour in a fit of “election-itis” is voting for the bill. So I have been to see Mr Borrows who has kindly said I can vote against it which I feel so much better about. 
This bill is right up there with the “Let’s Get Rid of Spray Cans in Manukau Bill” for all the same reasons. It does not address anything like the problem we confront with gangs. It will not work. The promoter of the bill knows that it will not work. Members of Labour and New Zealand First who are voting for the bill know that it will not work. If they had any courage of their convictions that this bill will work they would make it nationwide so that patches could not be worn from Kaitaia to Bluff. We have the absurdity that supposedly gang members can wear their patches everywhere in New Zealand bar Wanganui and that somehow that is good lawmaking. I think the bill should be renamed the “Let’s Elect Chester to Be the MP for Wanganui Bill” because that is its purpose. It is about a member standing up for his local constituents but actually Parliament should be bigger than that. 
Let us cut to the principles and I want the National Party to think about principles. National members stood up and huffed and puffed about free speech for MPs and spoke about that being a fundamental right. Yet suddenly one cannot wear something on one’s T-shirt. 
Chester Borrows 
: That’s up to the majority. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: That is a point I would like to take up with Ron Mark who talked about people going off to fight for our freedom. Well freedom is not what the majority says. Freedom is about the individual and the measure of a free society is how we move to protect the minority from the majority. If the majority thinks that people wearing glasses should be locked up that is not freedom or democracy; if the majority thinks that people of a certain colour should be treated differently because they are a minority that is not freedom. Freedom is actually about protecting the rights of each and every one of us. The law should be about that. 
The concern that we have about gangs is not about what they wear; it is about what they do. Our concern is when they intimidate us threaten us and beat us—and not just gangs or those wearing a patch do that. We have all manner of intimidation and threats to our property from all sorts of people. That is what we should be attending to in upholding our law. I see there is a by-law protecting us from gangs. Well I will tell members about one horrible gang: it is a gang that has taken more property than any other gang in our history that wears insignia that threatens our rights and that has taken away our right to free speech. That gang should be banned. That gang is the Labour Party. The good news is that at least under this bill the Wanganui District Council could ban the wearing of the Labour Party patch in its area. I would quite like to do that in Epsom and so would the people of Epsom. 
Let us have some sense let us let Chester Borrows do his electioneering and George Hawkins do his electioneering but in this Parliament let us please aspire to something greater for our nation than this rubbish.