SpeechThird ReadingHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I'm pleased to stand here this evening on the—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you have a legislative statement?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I do Mr Speaker of course I do. I present a legislative statement on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move That the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill be now read a third time.This is a big day for our Government when it comes to the measures that we are seeking to put in place to make targeted interventions to ensure that New Zealand is safe. This Government is providing police additional tools to seize the illicit assets of organised criminals through this legislation. The raft of legislative changes are targeted at gangs and are intended to strip gang members of the benefits of those criminal activities. This is about ensuring that crime does not pay and that there are major consequences for criminals and gang activity where those individuals who seek to participate within those criminal organisations and seek to gain from those activities—we say on this side of the House that we will not tolerate the participation in those activities. We are being very clear that this side of the House will make meaningful evidence-based interventions where it is appropriate to do so and the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill does just that. Together with the criminal activity intervention legislation these measures will hit the gangs where it hurts the most: that is indeed their profits. In 2020 we campaigned hard on working harder and smarter to keep our communities safer break the cycle of offending and tackle the root causes of crime—and across a range of areas this is exactly what we are doing across the criminal justice portfolio. So this bill contributes to the Government's election manifesto commitments to respond to organised crime by ensuring enforcement agencies—primarily the police—have the appropriate powers to seize the proceeds of crime to disrupt organised criminal offending and primarily to hold its ringleaders—its leaders of those criminal organisations—to account. The new amendments to the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act will ensure that if someone is associated with organised criminal groups and if it is suspected they can fund those activities appropriately that interventions will be made. There are four parts to this particular piece of legislation that we are introducing tonight. The first—and any New Zealander like myself would have been quite befuddled" is the word that I used earlier today to find out that where you have somebody shooting at a home that there are simply insufficient penalties that the police have to call on—we are introducing a crime: discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate. This clause will amend the Crimes Act 1961 and it will introduce a threatening act. The key issue here is that in times more recent—and this was particularly evident last year—we saw in a heightened time of gang conflict that you had individuals that were going out there shooting at homes and the penalties available to the police at that time were simply inadequate. There is a summary offence of discharging a weapon in a public place—the maximum penalties that were attached to that were simply untenable for a modern country that is committed to ensuring that we keep communities safe. Secondly what we are seeking to do here is expand the power of enforcement officers to seize and impound vehicles where it can be shown that vehicles are proven to intimidate or cause concern to the general public. This amendment is included to provide that the owner of a motor vehicle seized and impounded under the expanded provision relating to seizure of motor vehicles set out in clause 16 with the right of appeal to the police—this appeal can be exercised on the basis that the owner could not have been reasonably expected to know that the operator of the vehicle would commit any of the new specified offences or took all reasonable steps to prevent the operator of the vehicle from committing such an offence.The third part of this bill is that we are introducing a warrant to search and seize weapons where there is a gang conflict. This has been the primary focus and I would just like to acknowledge the work that has been done by the select committee and all of those that submitted on this particular provision stewarded through in an exceptional manner by the former chair of the Justice Committee the now Minister of Police the Hon Ginny Andersen. The warrant to search and seize weapons where there is a gang conflict—again this is in direct response to the issues that arose last year. We had well-documented intergang warfare. The police knew what was happening in terms of that inter-gang warfare. They could anticipate who was about to undertake particular types of activities but they didn't have any powers to be able to act upon the intelligence that they were receiving.What this warrant does is it enables the police to go before a judge to seek a warrant it will be tagged to a particular geographical location it will be tagged to the particular participating gangs and it will enable the police to undertake search and seizures for weapons in a specified gang conflict period of time. We've sought to ensure that this power which is a bold power to provide our police is offset and balanced by ensuring that the police are required to put up a sound evidential basis to the courts. The courts are required to run over quite a coherent test and the court must be satisfied that there is a sound evidential basis by which that warrant should be provided.I want to address the fact that every single aspect that we have sought to do as a Government isn't to respond in an emotive manner. What we've sought to do on this side of the House when it comes to tackling the criminal justice issues that have found themselves before us is to make sure that we act and that we operate on a sound evidential basis. There is a sound evidential basis for the introduction of these measures that we are seeking to introduce tonight. What some may say is a knee-jerk reaction—to the contrary. What would be a knee-jerk reaction is introducing evidence-less measures like banning gang patches where the late Hon Chester Borrows who introduced that measure in a little place called Whanganui later came to be of the view that it was absolutely ineffectual as testaments were made from this side of the House at the time that that measure simply would not work to intervene and interrupt and disrupt gang activity. We know that what will intervene and interrupt and disrupt is making sure that we target those gangs where it hurts the most and that is always going to be in one's wallet.So I'm proud of this bill that we're bringing forward tonight. I'm also proud of the additional measures that this Government has introduced to tackle the root causes of crime; that we have provided a plethora of other avenues to ensure that those young New Zealanders who feel helpless and feel like there is no other place for them who might be lured into the seductive life of those gang environments—that we are providing alternative measures whether that's through work whether that's through training whether that's through wraparound services to support those young people to make different choices. I'm confident in our Government's approach to the broader crime and criminal justice portfolio. These measures here will provide our law enforcement officers with the much-required tools that they require. So I'm pleased to commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."