CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui)
: I move,
That the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill be now read a first time. I am proud to sponsor this bill through the parliamentary process because it is the outworking of a democracy that allows local people to provide for the safety of people by creating law to be enforced locally, for the benefit of local people. Wanganui has taken it upon itself to address a problem that is not specifically a Wanganui problem but is a problem in many other provincial towns and metropolitan centres around New Zealand. Wanganui has suffered a stigma by taking responsibility in this way.
This week, before the Wellington District Court, 12 Mongrel Mob members appeared at a depositions hearing charged with the murder of a 2-year-old child, Jhia Te Tua, who was shot with a .303 rifle as she slept in her home. The shots were reputedly in retribution for similar actions by her family towards another gang, Black Power, weeks before, and occurred after an altercation on that day. This tragedy came at the end of about 18 months of high police activity in respect of gangs in our city. Repeated confrontations in the streets and in other public places over 18 months frightened people and intimidated others to a point where they felt uncomfortable in going about their day-to-day business. Thankfully, at the end of the 18-month period that culminated in the shooting of this child, gang activity and confrontations around Wanganui have waned, to a degree.
Wanganui is a proud city and one with a huge history from the earliest Māori settlement and the early colonial settlement by Pākehā. Before road and rail travel developed, Wanganui was the hub of North Island travel, and before that it was the hub of overseas trade by Māori who were shipping produce to Auckland, Otago, and Australia in their own ships and by their own entrepreneurial skill. Sadly, Wanganui is
not known for those historic achievements. It has not become known for achievement, although in my maiden speech I referred to fashion courses, graphic design, fine arts, and university-level qualifications that fashion houses and movie companies pay a premium for in Europe and the USA. Wanganui is not famous for its engineering businesses that sell around the world and are well known internationally for the products they build, including some built into space shuttles and marine craft around the world. The media are always drawn to Wanganui by poor outcomes such as those in health, law and order, and race relations, and by anything else that is bad news.
Wanganui is taking responsibility for those we call our own. This bill seeks to ban gang patches in certain public places, including the central business district and various parks and reserves around our city. It seeks to remove those patches because they intimidate and frighten people who are walking around doing their day-to-day business, and they tend to inflame situations when those of another persuasion are there at the same time. It seeks to impose fines on those people who continue to wear gang patches when they have been told to remove then, and it seeks to list the gangs whose patches are prohibited.
The legal purists say that criminal law should not be made for local application, but we need to remember that bills like the Manukau graffiti bill are precursors for nationally applied legislation, as we will see in respect of the graffiti legislation—just like the liquor ban legislation was, and like countless other laws were before it. Where a local authority has the will to make legislation and uses provisions within our legal system to draft and present a proposal, it has every right to expect that central government will allow the law to be enacted for the benefit and protection of that local community.
The Wanganui District Council has done far more than put some words on paper and submit them to this House. Council members spoke to local police, who were pleased to enforce the law as it was, but in speaking to the legal section at police national headquarters, they were encouraged to put the matter before Parliament so it would have the sanction of Parliament. Council members wanted the police’s powers to include the power to remove gang patches and to make an arrest for non-compliance.
At the appropriate time, I will move that this bill is referred to the Law and Order Committee.
After putting the proposal set out in this bill past the police national headquarters and the local police had taken legal advice on it, a referendum was held. It was responded to by over 50 percent of the local electors, ratepayers, and residents of Wanganui City, and 65 percent of those who turned out and voted, voted in favour of this legislation. There was a public consultation period, pursuant to the rules for a local legislation bill, and then the bill came to Parliament. Having jumped through those hoops, the Attorney-General has scrutinised the bill for conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and has found that there are a number of inconsistencies. I doubt whether anybody is surprised at that.
