Amanda Gillies

I did follow up with Rima's office on that after our interview.

Now, they didn't give us a yes or no answer, but said National isn't aware of any funding that has gone to gangs under the coalition government.

Given this government's approach to gangs, it's our expectation that government departments would raise anything relevant to that.

And it's certainly true that this government has had a heavy focus on gangs.

National has gone big on gangs.

That's sort of been a badge of honour for you guys.

So I've got a query on this one then.

Why didn't you guys do this as a government bill?

Pass it that way.

Why did you decide to put it in the biscuit tin and wait for it to be pulled out instead?

But she doesn't have the support of Dr Trevor Bradley, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Criminology at Victoria University.

He believes the Hawke's Bay programme, run by the gang members and funded by the Labour government, worked well.

Reema Naklei, the MP who has this member's bill, says, look, she doesn't want money to go to the very gangs who are supplying the drugs that are causing the issues.

What do you say to that?

And you worry that we could end up with more victims by cutting off that funding, you know, to be spent by the gangs.

Because I think with then-Police Minister back when this was done by Labour, Mark Mitchell said that this is simply funding the gangs and this money would be channelled through to their perhaps illegal activity.

You say that that can't happen?

That's it for today.

The Detail is a Newsroom production supported by RNZ and New Zealand On Air.

Thank you to Rima Nakhle and Dr Trevor Bradley.