Rotorua MP says 'no' to ban on criminals

Steve Chadwick

Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick has spoken out against her local council's proposal to ban criminals from the heart of the city.

The Labour MP said yesterday that she would not take the plan to Parliament for approval.

"I'm not convinced it's a member's bill I'd want to put my name to."

Ms Chadwick said she supported crime-fighting measures in the city, but believed the ban was legally too problematic for the council and police to implement.

"I don't think it's going to fly, even with the best intentions."

The Rotorua District Council wants to give police the power to issue trespass notices to people with five or more dishonesty convictions who enter the central business district.

Police say the ban would reduce crime in the heart of the tourist city by targeting a small group of known criminals. It would initially affect about 10 people.

The council voted 12-1 in favour of the proposal this week and is awaiting legal advice before implementing it.

Te Ururoa Flavell, MP for the Waiariki Maori seat (which includes Rotorua), also expressed his opposition to the ban yesterday, saying it would result in "ethnic targeting".

"We know that Maori are significantly over-represented in apprehension, prosecution and conviction statistics, so it goes without saying that Maori in Rotorua will be significantly affected."

In May, Ms Chadwick voiced support for a Rotorua lawyer's proposal for tougher sentences for criminals who target tourists.

But she said the proposal proved too legally complex and any plan to take it to Parliament was axed.

The Rotorua council has said it is determined to implement its central city ban, and will take it to the Government if necessary.

The Government's stand on the proposal is unknown, as Police Minister Annette King will not to comment and Justice and Local Government Minister Mark Burton is in Australia.

National Party law and order spokesman Simon Power said the proposal was an indictment on the Government's crime-fighting.

"What it signals is that local government feels forced to make its own arrangements for crime prevention because central government isn't fronting up to the job."

He said Ms Chadwick should put the proposal before Parliament as a local member's bill so it could go to a select committee and be debated by the Rotorua community.

The council is seeking two legal opinions on the ban, and hopes to have an answer within two weeks.

The ban would be implemented under the Trespass Act, rather than as a bylaw, which requires public consultation under the Local Government Act.

But a similar ban proposed in Kaitaia in the early 1990s failed after civil libertarians challenged it in the High Court at Auckland.

An official at police headquarters in Wellington said the proposed ban in Rotorua was a local issue.

Rotorua area commander Inspector Bruce Horne cited the success of British "anti-social behaviour orders", which cover not only dishonesty crimes but racial abuse, vandalism, graffiti and other public nuisances.

But Dr Rodney Harrison, QC, who represented the Council for Civil Liberties in the Kaitaia case, said the British orders operated under legislation enacted in Parliament.

"The whole point about our system of law is that police can't simply take the law into their own hands to punish people - and banning people from the city centre is punishing them - nor can a local body."