Gangs and Organised Crime Bill: Committee Stage
Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for Waiariki
Wednesday 28 October 2009

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia ora tātou i tēnei rā.

I am aware that time is moving on and I want to take a brief call. I find myself stuck with the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. I tend to agree with many of the statements made by my colleague Shane Jones, because of the loss of two lives in Murupara in my electorate—a young boy, Jordan Herewini out of Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tāwhiuau, who was killed earlier this year, and another young man, Kaine Lewis, again involved in a gang confrontation in Murupara—which resulted in a hīkoi through the town. If members do not know Murupara, it is a rural community way out in the middle of the bush. Once upon a time it was a thriving community.

The vast majority of the people who live there are Māori. At this point in time many are unemployed. Basically there are two gangs involved in that town right now: the first is the Tribesmen, who have been established there and, for all intents and purposes, are made up not only of many of the people of the particular iwi of Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Whare but also of the Mongrel Mob, who have moved into town.

The two altercations that resulted in the deaths of those two boys have come out of gang confrontations and the use of colours, which has been discussed today. Having been associated with the young boy Jordan—we had travelled together on various trips—his death really hit home to me and certainly made me feel really angry in respect of how gang culture has developed in Aotearoa.

In reflecting on this bill, I wonder whether we will ever get rid of the whole notion of gangs in Aotearoa, but I am tending to believe that we will not. Experience overseas tells us that no matter what strategies have been employed thus far throughout the world, it seems to be that there still remains a culture of “ganghood”, and that is the difficulty. No matter what we try to do—lock them up, throw away the key, or work with them—there still remains the whole notion of gang culture. Yet there have been some examples where working with them has produced positive results.

Not that I am the expert on gangs, but I think back to the work Sir Robert Muldoon started and others have picked up in terms of moving towards employment schemes and so on. The strange thing about this experience is that in Murupara they decided to take the bull by the horns and come back—and I am talking only about this particular situation, not other gangs, if you like—to our own tikanga. I am talking only about these two gangs, which we might call Māori gangs.

They have called a rāhui, which is a prohibition on a violence in their town. It seems to be taking off and working. It means there is a lot of dialogue and a lot of talk between those people involved. We as a party have been talking a lot about this issue, and in particular saying: “Yes, we have to do something, but what is that something that would produce the best results against the context that gangs will stay with us?” Sure, there are some measures that might happen to on the side, but one of the things we are absolutely confident about is the need to us to empower communities to allow them to get on and deal with the issues within their own environment.

As I say, since that time the rāhui has been imposed, it has even got to the point that Ngāti Manawa have basically banned patches from their marae. Imagine—and this is a real situation—that a gang member here in Wellington has died, and his family have said that they want his body to go back to Murupara to be buried. Those back in Murupara say that he cannot come back. If he chose that life, he should stay down in Wellington. He cannot go back and be buried amongst his people in Murupara.

The Murupara community will not even allow him to go to their marae. If his body did go back to Murupara, then the family first needs to find a place for him to lie, and, second, to get agreement from the people that he can lie in the same urupā, the same cemetery, as all of the ancestors. That is happening right now, today.

If not today, it was yesterday; I have spoken to the people about it. That situation is the sort of thing that can happen. I am caught between the whole notion of having to do something, but, at the end of it, having discussed it in our caucus, we struggle with the notion of simply keeping locking them up. It might satisfy our minds right now, but we are looking for some other solutions on top of that.

There is no doubt that those who commit those crimes should serve the time; I have no problem with that. But we have to do something about rehabilitation to try to get them back into society. If it comes at a hard cost, like not being allowed to go back to be buried amongst one’s people, that is a big call. Mr Jones will know that not being allowed to be buried amongst one’s own people is a very, very big call. In fact, not even being allowed to go on to one’s marae to grieve over one’s relations is a big call.

Just two weeks ago, there was a tangi in Murupara attended by a kuia who was about 90 years old, and whose children are teachers. As soon as the rāhui came in and Ngāti Manawa banned the patches, the Tribesmen could not go on to their marae.

It got a little bit dicey, there, I am told, but in the end they respected it. And further, they went down to the urupā to bury her, they tried to go there, and women stood in the road. Kuia and koroua stood in the road and said they were not going in there, or to get the patches off, one or the other.

They told them to take their leave. So there are serious efforts on the part of communities to take back people’s own communities, and I use Murupara as just one example. The hope would be that the notion of using our own tikanga spreads. I do not know how it would work in Kaitaia, Kaikohe, or elsewhere, but I am confident, based on what has happened, that we can change the mindset.

While this bill is before us, I want the House to understand that our vote is about looking at other solutions. Although we do not support this particular bill as such, we understand the reasons for it. We also want to look at the bigger picture. That might come not just in the law and order field or the justice field, but it might come in a bigger picture. I wanted to raise just those points, in case other speakers from the Māori Party have not put that view. It will be a part of the picture painted with our vote later on in the other readings.

Firstly, I will speak with regard to the terminology. If we ask most New Zealanders about the word “gang”, the notion that would come to the mind of most New Zealanders would be that of Black Power, Mongrel Mob, maybe some bikie gangs, people on motorcycles, and that is about it.

Carmel Sepuloni raised the issue of colours and after talking with some people in this particular area I say that those people do not seem to be classed as gangs, in a sense. So I want to check with the Minister about what he said a little bit earlier by raising the point about the definition of gangs how far and how wide that particular definition goes.

Mr Cosgrove has raised the point of whether white collar crime fits into the notion of gangs and there might be some catches. It might fit under the other part of the title of bill—“organised crime” and so be it. But I make the point that the connotation of “gangs” is around the notion of Māori gangs or those that, let us say, affiliate to those Māori gangs.

That is the first point. Mr Cosgrove raised the notion of the cost in finding solutions. I want to raise the point again that I had talked about at least one community taking an opportunity and that I supported them on that particular notion. That is what the Māori Party says.

I will come to the $6,500 shortly. If there was support to allow those communities to get on with those solutions then we would be happy because that at least is dealing with the problem and will get away from going to the next part, which is the $6,500.

Mr Cosgrove talks about the cost to the taxpayer and yet the end result of this bill will be to lock up more people, no doubt, therefore there is a contradiction in what he is talking about in having a go. The third point I would make is that already now in law there are opportunities for the police to move in on gangs.

We know that because that is exactly what happened in a number of scenarios that people will be well aware of. Sure this bill might harden up the legislation, sure it extends certain terms, but the law as it stands at the moment is able to deal with those issues.

I want to respond by saying that that is one line. The law is already there that can take care of those issues so what do we do to deal with the situation afterwards because we are just breeding more and more and more of it. The Māori Party approach is that we need to look at alternatives. That is not to say “Don’t throw them into jail.”; I told the Chamber before that those who do the crime should do the time.

There is no doubt about that. We do not have a problem with that. But we are saying that we should look at other solutions. At least one community has put its hands up over the issue and we hope that spreads. It is not to say that Murupara has all the answers, it does not, but at least it is right for people there. Other places will have different solutions. The point about back-up too is exactly right. We hope that rather than put $6,000 or whatever to send a person to jail that we put $6,000 on issues of rehabilitation. That would be helpful; that would be really helpful.

ENDS

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