John MacDonald: Gang crackdown can't come quickly enough

Gang crackdown - doing nothing is not an option anymore. Photo / Supplied

OPINION

I had a bit of a "come to Jesus" moment yesterday. In fact, I had several of them.

It was after hearing the harrowing stories people shared with us on Newstalk ZB about the impact methamphetamine has had on their families.

The conversations we had were incredibly moving.

We heard some desperate, desperate stories - although one did have a happy ending with the chap who told us about his daughter who had lost custody of her kids because of her addiction, and how she'd got herself off the meth, got her kids back and is now in a senior role with Oranga Tamariki.

But the "come to Jesus" moments I'm talking about came when I heard the absolute hatred some of these parents had for the gangs peddling this awful, awful drug to their kids. And the way they're getting people hooked on meth by selling them cannabis laced with the stuff.

One chap told me he'd got to the point where he was ready to pick up a shotgun and deal to the gangs himself. And we heard stories about punch-ups with gang members in driveways after they turned up demanding money. Just terrible stuff.

And so when the Government made the announcement that it's going to crack down on the so-called "ill-gotten gains" of gang members, my cynicism about this sort of thing disappeared and I thought about those people I'd spoken to and thought to myself "about bloody time".

Then seeing the footage on the TV news last night - which was nothing new, we've seen it all before - but seeing the pictures of the gold-plated motorbikes, I thought about the real-life stories we'd heard yesterday and I was sickened seeing these gang members flaunting their so-called wealth. Effectively, rubbing the faces of the people we heard from yesterday in the dirt.

These gangs are ruining lives up and down the country. And they have the gall to hold up that misery as some sort of badge of honour, with the flash cars and flash motorbikes and everything else they spend their dirty money on.

So the gist of what the Government is doing, is it's expanding the powers of the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act so that someone who isn't necessarily a gang member but is what's called an "associate", will have to prove to the courts that any flash stuff they've got was funded and purchased legitimately.

Because what's been happening, is gang members have been putting property under the names of associates so that their assets can't be seized - because the Proceeds of Crime laws have only applied to the crims themselves.

So the gangs sell the drugs and do all the other illegal things they do to make the money, but they use smoke and mirrors and have all the flash cars and gold-plated motorbikes registered under other peoples' names. "Nothing to see here, officer".

And what's going to happen now, is anyone the police are suspicious of - gang member or not - will have to prove that assets are legitimately theirs and haven't been bought using money from illegal activities, such as dealing in methamphetamine.

Now I've got no idea whether this change to the legislation is going to work, or not. But after those "come to Jesus" moments yesterday, I'm not even going to stop and think about that, because I say "just do it, give it a go". Because doing nothing is not an option anymore. In my view.

And I don't think I would necessarily be saying that today if I hadn't heard those terribly sad stories about what methamphetamine is doing to people's kids, and if I hadn't heard the hatred that came through in those calls towards the gangs.

And that's why, as far as I'm concerned, these legislation changes can't come quick enough.