KEY POINTS:
There has been much tip-toeing around the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. To a degree, that is understandable. Memories of the fatal shooting of 2-year-old Jhia Harmony Te Tua as she slept on a couch in the front room of her parents' house remain fresh. Tensions in Wanganui may have subsided since that gang-related tragedy but people remain anxious. Sixty-four per cent of those who responded to a council-initiated referendum supported the bill, which would ban the wearing or displaying of gang insignia in public places. That, in an election year, is obviously enough for most politicians to tread warily.
It should not be so. The bill would, if passed, have far-reaching consequences. It has arrived in Parliament only because a bylaw drafted along similar lines ran into issues associated with the freedoms and articles of non-discrimination enshrined in the 1990 Bill of Rights Act. The local bill presented by National MP Chester Borrows cannot avoid the same questions about freedom of expression and association.
Preventing Mongrel Mob and Black Power gang members wearing what they like is the thin end of an extremely large wedge. This is not just about gang paraphernalia intimidating members of the public and being the catalyst for further gang confrontation. It is about what comes next. Perhaps anything that is deemed vaguely threatening. Burqas? Hoodies? Both intimidate some people.
Indeed, supporters of this legislation will point out that hooded clothing is banned in some large British shopping complexes and at least one similar establishment in this country, the Coastlands Mall on the Kapiti Coast. Shoppers have been quick to back the ban, saying it removed what they saw as an intimidating presence. But there is a substantial difference between retailers trying to protect their customers and their reputations and legislation imposing what is essentially a dress code.
Determining what people can wear is not a field in which local councils or Parliament need to be involved. Comparable jurisdictions, many of which have taken far more stringent lines on law and order, have not ventured there. The Prime Minister has acknowledged as much in noting that this approach was in its infancy internationally, and there were no known evaluations of how it might work. But Labour also knows that to stop this bill in its tracks would leave it trailing most others in the contest to look tough over fighting gangs.
The safest course is, therefore, to allow the legislation to advance. It is not to point out its significant flaws or to query how it will survive a Bill of Rights Act check by the Ministry of Justice. It is not to note obvious potential difficulties, such as some gang members' practice of tattooing insignia on their faces.
This is not, as Police Association president Greg O'Connor would have it, a piece of legislation bound to become "the model for the country". He, more than anyone, knows that the solution to Wanganui's gang violence lies in a stronger police presence, better intelligence-gathering and a more co-ordinated approach nationally. Proof, if any were needed, was provided by Operation 55, the police campaign in the city after the shooting of Jhia Te Tua, which achieved its objective of substantially reducing crime.
It did this without having to go into uncharted territory. There was no need to legislate against rebel clothing, which, in various guises, has always been a staple means of expressing alienation. Previous generations saw no need to ban such clothing. This one should be no different.
