Turei Metiria: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2108] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I have an amendment to clause 4 in my name that looks to explicitly ensure that tattoos are not included in the definition of gang insignia. I see that Chester Borrows has a Supplementary Order Paper doing the same thing and I expect that whichever of them goes first will pass. 
I am pleased that Mr Borrows has put forward that Supplementary Order Paper because we have been particularly concerned that by not excluding tattoos from the definition of gang insignia Maori in particular who have a tradition—an ancient thousand-year history—of ta moko will be targeted unjustly by the council and the police through the use of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. 
This is an area where I find Labour’s position on the bill difficult to understand. Notwithstanding that Labour members have said they are opposing the legislation if we look at the select committee report we see that there is no indication whatsoever that Labour opposes it. The select committee included New Zealand First Labour and National members. In particular Labour and New Zealand First members were concerned to make sure that tattoos were included in the definition of gang insignia thereby increasing the risk of prejudice and discrimination particularly against Maori. It would be nice to get some clarity from Labour about what its actual position is on this issue because it is not clear from the bill and it is a bit difficult to get a sense of where that party is really going. 
There is a real issue here about the definition of a public place. I said earlier that nothing prevents a council essentially from being able to declare the entirety of the Wanganui district area a specified place and therefore as subject to this law. Mr Garrett pointed to a provision in clause 5—which I am sure we will get to—that states that the council is not supposed to do that but nothing actually stops it from effectively doing it. 
The definition of a public place includes any area that is under the control of the council whether or not that area is being used or is open to being used by the public. The definition in clause 4 also includes “a road whether or not the road is under the control of the Council;”. The Wanganui district area is a very large area and a particularly rural area so there will be lots and lots of places that the council will not necessarily know about. The council may provide a set of rules that essentially covers the main thoroughfares of the city and the region—the areas that are most likely to be populated—miss out just a few individual roads but be covered by the provisions of this bill and not therefore breach clause 5 as Mr Garrett read out. But the council would have effectively closed off the entire district. 
There is no indication in the legislation of the consequences for the council if it were to close off the entire district. The bill does not state which parts of the council rules would then not be in effect or whether all of the rules that breach that provision would not then be valid. It does not state that. It does not state how the determination is to be made or who will make it. I know the making of by-laws is restricted to some extent and there are controls around that but nothing in this legislation indicates what they are or what the sanctions might be. So my position—that this bill will allow the Wanganui District Council to effectively close off the entire region and make it subject to this legislation—still stands because there is nothing that will prevent the council from doing so in a practical or practicable way. 
That is a very serious concern especially when it is placed alongside the power of the police to stop and search vehicles. The provisions in the main are about the display of gang insignia in a public place—a public display—so we can understand the logic behind the provision. We might disagree with it but we can understand the reasoning behind it. But when we start talking about the police being able to stop and search the cars of people who may or may not be displaying gang insignia inside the car which is a private place—it is not a public place that is subject to the council rules—we ask then where in the rules that power to stop cars and search people for gang insignia makes sense given that the purpose is to stop the display of gang insignia in a public place. 
A car is not a public place. The police do not have to know that there is a display of gang insignia in a public place by a person who is currently in a car; they have only to suspect that display. So they can stop the car on any grounds and what they will actually do in practice—and what Maori know they will do in practice—is stop a car full of Maori. It does not matter what those Maori have been doing—[ 
Interruption 
]—and Paul Quinn knows that that will be the case. 
Paul Quinn 
: You can call me Paul. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Well I have to use the member’s proper name; I am just trying to be well-behaved. The member knows that that will be the case. The Maori members in this House know that that will be the case. The police will simply stop every car that has a significant number of Maori people in it using this provision in order to search them. The police do not have to have reasonable cause to stop and search the car; they have only to suspect that someone may or may not be wearing gang insignia which is a very broad description. There is the kind of obvious gang insignia we all think about but what about something like a swastika for example which actually has multiple uses and multiple meanings? I understand that for a Hindu a swastika is a symbol of love harmony intelligence and strength. But if the council decides that a swastika as a single symbol is a gang insignia then anybody can be stopped in his or her car by the police because the police have decided they want to search that car for a swastika. 
Members might want to suggest that perhaps it would be only skinny bald guys with big boots who have swastikas. Buddhists do not have a lot of hair. There is just no way that a rule can be set around the display of these things that makes any practical sense that is properly enforceable and that is sufficiently constrained so the rule actually meets its purpose. That is where this bill fails the process of making good law that is enforceable that has a sound basis and that we know will be enforced in a way that makes sense for the community and deals with the issues in it. 
Of course gang violence is a big issue but this bill as we have heard will not do anything about it. What it does do which is even worse is create a great deal of uncertainty in the community about colours which will lead potentially to a great deal more violence around the wearing of colours. It gives the council enormous powers to outlaw symbols and make their wearing a criminal offence. Some symbols are ancient symbols that have multiple levels of meaning but the council’s actions will be based on its own prejudiced views about what those symbols might mean and about the people who carry them. 
The bill gives the police extraordinary power which they do not have anywhere else in the country or even under existing criminal law to stop and search people in a car whom they suspect potentially of displaying gang insignia thus giving the police the power to search that car and those people for a great deal of other kinds of things justly or unjustly. 
A large number of court cases will come out of the use of that power in particular because it is such a significant extension of the police powers of search without warrant. I know that Mr Borrows has a lot of experience in the police and in the law. He understands how these things are put out in practice. I am sure he knows that police are out there who will stop and search cars full of Maori simply because they can and in the Wanganui area this bill will make it much much easier for that to happen. It will lead to perfectly ordinary probably Maori men who would otherwise be entirely law abiding becoming extremely frustrated and angry with the police and being subject to extraordinary police harassment for no reason other than that they might be wearing a red jumper a black jumper or a yellow jumper inside a car full of other Maori wearing other kinds of coloured clothes. 
That is not the kind of law this Parliament should be passing; it is very bad law and very unenforceable law. It will cause enormous problems in the community itself and create higher levels of violence between communities and higher levels of prejudice thereby increasing police harassment. I urge this Committee to oppose this legislation for all of those reasons and for the other reasons we have heard today.