He knew that getting them into work would keep them away from crime.
And it did, for a time. Gang members worked together on subsidised work schemes.
But as so often happens where gangs are concerned, they never got an even break.
Their work contracts dried up and they turned back to doing what they do best: Surviving on the proceeds of crime.
Now we have the current National leader, Christopher Luxon, telling us the answer to increased gang activity is to push for tougher sentencing for gang members when they commit crimes.
Luxon revealed National’s new policy on Sunday, just days after Ōhope and Whakatāne had to accommodate a large Mongrel Mob funeral procession that led to schools closing, a highway being shut and police investigating gunshots.
Under its policy, National would make being a member of a gang an aggravating factor if that person was being sentenced, with the intention that convicted gang members would face “tougher consequences” for their crimes.
They have to be held responsible for their actions, National believes.
I believe responsibility cuts both ways.
Did successive governments not realise that one day the thousands of young New Zealanders taken into state care, from the 1950s onwards, would be turned out onto the streets when they turned 17? This changed to 18 in 2016 and today they can, in some instances, stay until they are 21.
But in most cases, once out of state care, they are left to fend for themselves with no support.
There should be no surprises then that, as a society, we are now reaping what was sown all those years ago.
Those put into state care were children, most Māori, and some as young as 3 or 4. They then grew up, had their own children and are now grandparents too.
In some instances, three generations have had the state in their lives.
There have been whole families of siblings brought up in state care.
One family told me, once the state got entangled in their lives, there was usually no way out for them.
Families got red-flagged by government agencies that worked together, and a lifetime of state interference, bullying and emotional abuse was set in motion.
When these young adults were released from state care onto the streets, they met up with those they knew from the years in care. This was the beginning, the genesis, of the two major gangs we know today, Black Power and the Mongrel Mob.
Now adults, I have heard many of them share their harrowing accounts of life in state care.
They were abused sexually, physically and emotionally.
Their Māori parents were widely viewed as unfit to raise their children so they had to be taken and placed where they would be safe. As adults, so many never found their way back home.
They lost touch with family and the gangs filled that role. That’s who they knew and felt safe with - gang whānau.
I have always maintained MPs should have been made to attend at least two days of hearings of the Royal Commission into the Abuse of Children in State Care.
In my view, at least then, when they talk about gangs, they would have some idea of what they are talking about, including their background and how gang whānau came to be.
They would also understand why gang whānau have little time and no respect for the so-called caring New Zealand society that was not there for them, to protect them, in their childhood years.
State care was never safe care for these children.
The state knows it, gang whānau know it and society should by now know it too.
But I suspect it’ll be in denial. Report after report, 15 in the last 20 years, highlighted the state is “failing in its duty of care” to the children in their care.
National’s new gang policy sounds like Groundhog Day to me.
It’s never worked in the past.
Maybe it will now, but I can’t believe any political party believes this is the right course of action to reduce criminal offending by gang members.
No matter how appealing it may sound to the worrying masses, it won’t work.
I think Sir Robert Muldoon had the right idea: engage with the gangs and understand that whānau is whānau - whether gang whānau or otherwise.
There is intergenerational trauma at work here and that does not take kindly to being reminded “you are where you are today because of your actions”.
What about the actions, or rather inactions, of successive governments? When you create a Taniwha, you have to accept the part you played too.
Gang members who work and provide for their families had no time to get into trouble and with Sir Robert’s support, most didn’t.
He was respected because he cared enough to realise that locking men away for long periods would achieve very little.
Society had to know what would motivate them to turn their lives around, otherwise it ended up with offenders coming out of jail with more criminal smarts than when they went in.
Some might liken these gang whānau to Once Were Warriors whānau. I believe we could just as easily liken New Zealand society to a once-decent society.
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Today, she writes, broadcasts and is a regular social issues commentator on TV. Of Te Arawa, she believes fearless advocacy for equity and equality has the potential to change lives.
