A double shot of crime legislation features in a Parliament week laden with Government bills getting a first reading.
The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill and the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, both for which Justice Minister Kiri Alan is the minister in charge, are set to be debated in today’s sitting day.
Kiri Allan Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
In the case of the former bill, the Government’s Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins, said it “makes changes to the way we can recover money from gangs particularly, makes it easier for us to recover money from gangs that has been gained through illegal activities”.
“That money then goes into the proceeds of crime fund which can be used to offset the harm caused by criminal offending.
“The Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill - which is a big name - that implements the package of measures that we announced about 6 weeks ago around gang-related activities. So that's including increasing the powers for police to do searches where there are instances of escalated tension between gangs, and increases what they can do around the seizure of vehicles, motor vehicles, and it also introduces an offence for discharging a firearm with the intent to intimidate, which kind of closes a bit of a loophole that exists in the law,” Hipkins explained.
Chris Hipkins in the House Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
Whether the double shot of bills will be enough to silence opposition National MP Mark Mitchell's constant epithets about the government being soft on crime remains to be seen, but we could yet see more bruising exchanges like this recent one between he and Hipkins.
“A lot of it comes down to the implementation police have been doing a really active job at the moment or enforcing the law when it comes to gangs and also just disrupting gang activity, and we're starting to see real results from that,” Hipkins insisted.
“So we are seeing less visibility of gangs as a result of the police’s very active policing work - that's not to say the problem has gone away though so then this legislation provides more tools for the police to help them to do that job.”
Also scheduled for a first reading are the Dairy Industry Restructuring (Fonterra Capital Restructuring) Amendment Bill whose minister in charge is Damien O’Connor, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade; the Deposit Takers Bill; the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill in the name of Jan Tinetti, and the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill - O’Connor again.
National MP Mark Mitchell in select committee Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Given how much more work the Government seeks to achieve in a short time, Hipkins is philosophical about the week of Parliament Business recently lost because of the Queen’s death, as disruption like this is frustrating from a House management perspective
“It happens from time to time. It’s probably happened more under this Government than any governments prior, between Covid-19 and other disasters, and the Queen’s death and a whole variety of things have disrupted our House business during the time that we’ve been in Government.
“But we find ways of adapting and we'll have a bit of re-juggling to do between now and Christmas to make sure we get the government's programme through.”
The Government continues to use extending sittings in the mornings to gain a bit of extra House sitting time.
