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:2090] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I have tabled some amendments to this legislation and I will discuss them as they arise. However I want to address clause 4 “Interpretation”. Is that what we are debating? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No we are on clause 3 “Purpose”. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Mr Borrows has set out some interesting propositions about this clause. I take exception to his trying to gain sympathy from Parliament by talking about the personal circumstances of the Mayor of Wanganui. That is not relevant to our discussion or our consideration of whether the citizens of Wanganui should be subject to legislation that severely restricts their freedom of movement. 
One of the other cases that Mr Borrows raised concerned a young man who was beaten to death for wearing a red jacket. This bill makes that kind of violence more likely rather than less likely. If this bill had been enacted those gang members in the car simply would not have been wearing their patches as they roamed around looking for a means to commit acts of violence. They would not have worn their patches. They would not have been stopped by the police. The police would have had no legal justification for stopping and searching them and therefore there would have been no restriction on their movements. Those gang members would have found anybody who looked like another kind of gang member—in this case someone wearing a red jacket—and attacked him. 
Part of what this bill will do by removing gang patches as a form of identification is to encourage gangs to use other means to identify themselves. Colour will be the primary means by which gang members identify their affiliation to a gang. Gang colours are part of the identification process already. We have yellow for the Killer Bees red for the Mongrel Mob and blue and black for Black Power. Interestingly enough a lot of the white gangs like White Power and some of the motorcycle gangs do not have colours or patches— 
Simon Bridges 
: So this is racist as well is it? 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Yes it is racist law. Those gangs will not be subject to this legislation. Nothing in this bill will impact on those gangs because they do not wear gang patches. They have bald heads or they have big boots. They will not be identified. But for those gangs that do identify themselves by colour colour will be the primary means of identifying them. Gang members will be roaming around the countryside looking for their gang enemies who are wearing the colours I have mentioned. This provision will put the citizenry of the whole country at greater risk of the kind of violence that Mr Borrows has just set out. I do not know whether that was an understood consequence of his legislation when he put it forward but that is how it will be dealt with by gang affiliates and gang members. They simply will not wear their patches. They will revert to colours instead. Anyone who unknowingly wears gang colours will be much more vulnerable to gang violence across the country not just in this one city. 
I also note that there is nothing in this legislation that prevents the by-law from covering every single public area of the Wanganui District. In fact this legislation could apply to every part of the Wanganui District. It does not restrict itself to city areas. It does not restrict itself solely to public places where the community congregates. In fact it could cover every street every paddock and every place that the council has any control over. The entire region could be covered by this legislation. Effectively that means that the discriminatory aspects of this legislation will then apply to any person going in or out of the Wanganui region. I assume that the Mayor of Wanganui City intended that to be the case. That is the kind of person he is and the kind of intention he would have. He would do his best—and I think Chester Borrows might have been involved in this—to keep from the public the fact that the entirety of the Wanganui region would be subject to this by-law. 
People are subject to the criminal consequences of this law even if there is no signage that tells them that there is a law affecting that particular area. Someone could commit a criminal offence by just driving through the Wanganui region. A person with no knowledge of this bill would still be subject to the provisions of it and that could lead to a $2000 fine. That is a significant breach of the human rights of New Zealand citizens.