Fenton Darien: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11885. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):It is a pleasure to take a call on this bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. I am going to be a bit kinder than my colleagues. First of all I congratulate the member who originally brought the bill. Members’ bills are a big thing for individual members so I congratulate Todd McClay and also Mark Mitchell who I think did a good job at the Back Bencher the other night explaining this bill. I think it is very well intentioned. I do not doubt that it is well meaning and that members genuinely believe that this bill will make a difference.I was not on the Law and Order Committee so I do not have the benefit of the experience but I have listened very carefully to my colleagues and I have come to the conclusion that this is window dressing—this is window dressing. I think the member over there Mike Sabin actually confirmed it. What he said is: “Even if it won’t work passing this bill will do no harm.”Mike Sabin: That’s not what I said.DARIEN FENTON: That is what he said. I wrote it down as you said it Mr Sabin: “Even if it won’t work passing a bill will do no harm.”As I have looked through this bill and looked at what the select committee said about it particularly our members and the Green Party members I can see that the committee members really struggled with definitions in this bill. They struggled with the definition of what is a public place or what is a public service “department” “Crown entity” “local authority” and so on. There are still the unanswered questions and perhaps the member in the chair Mark Mitchell can take a call and answer the questions that I have about this. What it seems to do is to create a situation where you can have anomalies. You can have for example someone wearing a patch in a bus shelter and that is prohibited because the bus shelter belongs to the local council but they are allowed to stand on the footpath outside. You can have the same kind of intimidation outside a school because it is not public property as you are not allowed to have in the school. I can see that gang members can be just as intimidating if not more so if they can stand outside public premises outside a hospital and so on.The other thing I think about this bill too is that if I were a gang member I would be deeply disappointed if my gang was not mentioned in this list in the bill. I would make it a matter of pride to get my name mentioned in legislation. Who has their gang mentioned in legislation? Where else would you be able to have such a badge of honour as to have your gang mentioned in legislation? There are bound to be gangs that have been missed out. There are bound to be problems with identifying who the gangs are. What the members opposite have been saying is that—although they were arguing about the speech of my colleague Mr Tirikatene and saying that the people he was describing were not covered by the bill—this bill expects public servants such as teachers and nurses to be able to identify what is a gang patch covered under clause 4 “Interpretation” in Part 1 and whether it is actually covered by this bill and the long long list of the various gangs. I think what Rino Tirikatene was trying to describe is how easily people could be confused and what a waste of police time that could be.One of the things I have been following recently is the National Front. Have you seen the insignia of the National Front? It is not covered by this bill but it is just as intimidating as that of many of the gangs that are mentioned here in this bill. How would a nurse or a teacher know the difference between a member of “Hu-Hu MC” or “Lone Legion MC” or “Mothers MC” or “Nomads”? How would they know that? The fact they are listed in this bill—Mike Sabin: I realise that. I’m astonished that the member is even suggesting that they’re unknown.DARIEN FENTON: Well they are unknown. I would not know who they are. I am sorry I have not been a policeman like that member. The arrogance of the policeman on that side of the Chamber is really getting a big boring to be honest. Look I am a lay member of the public. I am putting myself in the shoes of ordinary hard-working public servants such as teachers and nurses and asking a genuine question about how on earth they are supposed to be able to identify the gangs that are covered by this bill.Are they supposed to carry this legislation around with them? When someone comes into the hospital or the school wearing an insignia—and as I said there are many types of insignia; it is not just gang insignia—are they supposed to go up to them and say:“Are you a member of theBandidos MC? Is that a gang under clause 4 of the bill?”. Are they supposed to have a list on the wall? These are people who are trying to teach our kids at school. These are the nurses who are trying to deal with the injured who are coming through the door. Then they are supposed to ring the cops if they think that those people are covered by this bill and then they have got to wait for a policeman. The poor policemen have already had their resources cut under this Government. What this is going to do is add more pressure on cops who actually should be solving the crimes of ordinary people who are having their houses burgled and other things not wasting time.