Opinion: Government cracks down on gangs, new legislation bans insignia and public gatherings – Shane Reti

New legislation, coming into effect in November, means the display of gang insignia in all public places will be banned. Photo / NZME

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Government recently passed new legislation to crack down on gangs.
• These changes will begin to reset the justice system to rid New Zealand of lawlessness.
• The Government aims to reduce serious youth offending by 15% by 2029.

Dr Shane Reti is the Minister of Health and Minister for Pacific Peoples. He is the MP for Whangārei.

OPINION

Our Government has just passed a new piece of legislation aimed at cracking down on gangs and ridding New Zealand of the misery they cause.

The bill will come into effect in the second half of November and will ban the display of gang insignia in all public places, meaning that gang members won’t be able to flaunt their patches and intimidate Kiwis.

It will also stop gang members from gathering in public. Police will be able to intervene when a gang meeting is disrupting members of the public by issuing dispersal notices, so that they can’t associate with one another for seven days. This will be supplemented by new non-consorting orders, which can stop gang members from engaging with each other for up to three years.

I know that those of us in Whangārei are sick of the lawlessness and gang activity we’ve seen over the past few years. We’ve campaigned on these changes for a long time, and now we are walking the talk and delivering for you.

We’ve also just introduced a new package of sentencing reforms – so that criminals face proper consequences for their crimes.

These reforms will cap sentencing discounts that judges can apply at 40% and prevent the use of remorse discounts for repeat offenders.

It will also introduce a new aggravating factor for those who offend against sole-charge workers – such as dairy owners or service station workers – and for those who livestream or post their crimes online or exploit children by aiding them to offend.

It’s a big suite of reforms – also encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed on bail, in custody or on parole, implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas with a maximum sentence discount of 25%, reducing to 5% for a guilty plea entered during the trial. Finally, it will also amend the principles of sentencing to include any information provided to the court about the interests of victims.

We are a Government of targets and delivery – not talk and inaction. These changes begin to reset our justice system to rid New Zealand of lawlessness and put victims, not criminals, at the heart of the system.

When we deliver on these aims, we can meet our target to ensure there are 20,000 fewer victims of violent crime, and a 15% reduction in serious youth offending by 2029. The level of criminal offending that Labour left us with was morally reprehensible – and it changes now. We are going to restore law and order, so we can get New Zealand back on track.