Chapter 1: What government funding is currently provided to gang-linked groups?
The government is providing almost $3 million to a drug rehab programme with close links to the mongrel mob. Jacinda seems to trust me. Why wouldn't you?
That was 2021. Today, Jacinda Ardern is gone, Labour is no longer in power and the gangs, well, chances are they won't get their hands on any more government money because no, National doesn't trust them.
Now, if you don't love the gangs and you don't love the idea of government money going to gangs, you might well love this one. A National Party MP's member's bill to ban Crown agencies from funding gangs and anybody associated with gangs has been drawn from the biscuit tin.
Hi, I'm Amanda Gillies, and today on The Detail, I talk to that National MP who is taking aim at Kiwi gangs. Rima Nakhle has been blunt. She doesn't want a cent of taxpayers' money to prop up any group connected to criminal networks.
If I had a child, God forbid, or a family member addicted to meth, and then I find out the people that sold them the meth are getting money to take them off meth, I honestly want to cry. We can't send that message.
But critics argue it's less political progress, more political grandstanding.
It's a great opt-in, particularly in the lead-up to the election later in the year. And you can understand, given National's general position on gangs, that this is just kind of a natural extension of that punitive get-tough approach. But I think it's extremely short-sighted.
We'll hear why later in the podcast, but first, Rima and her new anti-gang mission.
The full name of it is the Public Finance Prohibition on Providing Public Funds to Gangs Amendment Bill. And essentially what this is aiming to do is to amend the Public Finance Act so that we don't allow the Crown or their agencies to to provide funds directly or indirectly to gangs, basically. And has that been a problem? What's sort of prompted this?
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Chapter 2: What is the National MP's proposal regarding gang funding?
It has, and, you know, I don't usually like to use the word loophole, but I will use it in this situation because there's been examples where public funds, and so that's the pool of money that is available for New Zealanders, have been given in a form of a fund or a grant specifically to different organisations that have some affiliations or are affiliated directly to gangs.
The last time we saw that happening glaringly was in 2021 under the former Labor government. And rightfully so, a lot of people got very upset about that. $2.75 million was given through a government agency to a program administered by the mongrel mob.
Now this was to be run by Hard to Reach, a consultancy that was founded by mongrel mob honorary life member Harry Tam. And mob members in Hawke's Bay would be key leaders of the programme. And the goal of it was to reduce crime and harm from methamphetamine dependency, especially amongst gang members which other rehab programmes had found especially hard to engage.
Why can they give the mongrel mob $2.7 million and not blink an eye? They don't want to know about us when we have problems in the South Island like the flooding and that. What did they get down there? Peanuts?
So the Honourable Simeon Brown, when he was still a member of Parliament, not a minister, put together this members' bill because he thought enough is enough. And I inherited it when he became a minister. And I thought, yep, this resonates with me a lot. And so it's in my name I'm shepherding this bill.
What is your issue with it? Is it because it is gang members or you feel like they've already got victims and it's re-victimising people? What makes you so angry about this?
I'm mindful that you use the word angry. And for some reason or many reasons, it does make me very angry. And if I really sift it to its core, there's a couple of reduced sifting reasons. And one of them is victims
for me are really always at the forefront of my mind and i think to myself gangs they are the reason why most of our drugs in our new zealand communities are on our shores they're the ones that are bringing them in to a great extent and they're the ones that are selling them and to say that the sellers are going to become the saviors it's just
like a smack in the face, particularly of parents and grandparents, family members that are going through the living hell of their whÄnau members, their family members being addicted to the drugs that are being sold by gangs to begin with. I get so angry thinking about it. It's a slap in the face. of victims, of family members, and it's sending the complete wrong message.
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Chapter 3: What are the arguments against cutting funding to gang-related organizations?
100%. And I am so proud of the fact that one of the big issues for us in the election in 2023 for the National Party, and we got onto it pretty soon after forming government, because I'm on the Justice Select Committee as well and I'm blessed to be on it, is providing rehabilitation for prisoners that are on remand in jails because it wasn't available. We're very serious about rehabilitation.
For the first time ever, we've got a Minister for Mental Health. We're serious about mental health issues. But what we're also serious about is that the people The gangs creating the misery are not going to be the ones that profit and get public funds to make it out as if they're helping people. If they really want to help people, they can stop selling the drugs.
Fair point. The one in Hawke's Bay, that programme, did it have any success?
From my reading, there's some people that say it did have some positive figures, but... A Ministry of Justice assessment found that two-thirds of those who'd completed the programme reported back that they still used methamphetamine, although most said they used less than before.
It's interesting, when I was researching this, Rima, I actually heard an interview with former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and she said that the Hawke's Bay programme was actually based on something the National Party had actually come up with.
A methamphetamine program that is currently being supported, that program is based on a program that has been around since 2010, which the then national government was happy to support. I see this as politics. Is that actually correct?
I know that the corridor going around is that the National Party also back in the day had some similar kind of funding. But for me, Amanda, how I feel is that the National Party of today is very clear that we are cracking down on gangs. We're cracking down on the misery that they are causing in our communities. And if I can say really simply, that was then, this is now.
Right now, the government I'm part of is one where we're sending a very strong message that the people administering the poison are not going to be administering the antidote as well.
I know a lot of people will back this, and you were sort of saying that sort of not a dollar of taxpayer money should go to gangs, but Rima, sort of how do you define a gang-linked organisation in practice, so to speak?
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Chapter 4: How does the proposed bill aim to change public funding policies?
And if I may say, that currently involved in criminal activity is really what tips the scales for me. I know there's people that were part of gangs and they've put that life behind them and they can absolutely give some lived experience. But when we're talking about people that are still currently involved,
with groups classified as gangs that are currently involved with criminal activity or associated with it, as I said, that tips the scales for me.
And just so we're clear, Rima, the current National Party, the coalition government, you guys have not given any money to any gangs since you guys got into power nearly three years ago.
No, I can't be 100% clear on that, Amanda. I have to go and get 100% clarity on that. But I know that this program that we're talking about, the plug was pulled on it in 2024. I'm just trying to remember which month, 2024. So I'm sorry, Amanda. No, I can't give you that. That's a very good question and I should know it, but I don't. But I can find out.
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.
When I became Prime Minister, I was fed up. I was fed up with the fact that gang members operated as if they were above the law. And as of today, the free ride for gangs is over. Because if you're part of a gang and you're convicted of a crime, your sentence could be a lot tougher. And that's because just being part of a gang will be an aggravating factor at sentencing before a judge.
Gang patches are now banned in public places. We've given police more powers to stop gang members from congregating in public and courts the power to stop gang members from associating or communicating.
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?
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Chapter 5: What criticisms have been made about the effectiveness of past funding?
It did have pretty good compliance conditions and there was pretty strong oversight. So, yeah, I was disappointed with that withdrawal. I mean, I think the bottom line is that if we want to reach those, you know, hard to reach communities, and of course, gang communities are a very good example of that, then we have to work with them. And it makes a whole lot of sense.
And I've heard Jared Gilbert talk about this in the past. It makes a lot of sense to work with those people who are part of those communities and We have to build up a relationship with those communities. Otherwise, they remain very difficult to reach and they remain out of view. And the problems just go underground and we don't get the access that we require.
So it just makes a whole lot of sense that we work with those people from scratch. those communities themselves. And as long as there's really good oversight mechanisms and there's really good evaluations attached to these programs, I really don't see what the problem is.
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?
Yeah, well, in a sense, I can understand that. But what it does, it's a very reductive kind of position to take. The whole gang situation is a lot more nuanced and complex than that. And, you know, I go back to the point that do we just cut these entire communities off from society? Do we pretend that, you know, they don't exist?
They will continue despite all the punitive measures introduced by this coalition government. Gang membership numbers are up, not down. And we know that meth consumption rates are up and by a very significant degree. So we are just cutting off our nose to spite our face, I think. when we refuse to work with gangs or when we refuse to fund programs that are gang-related or are targeting gangs.
Yeah, very, very short-sighted as far as I can see. We need to work with those communities, not against them. You know, it doesn't mean to say that government funding is facilitating gang activity. It's very specifically targeted at things like problematic drug use reduction, harm reduction.
If we can make some progress in that area, then that will have spin-off benefits as well in terms of the reduction of things like domestic violence and general types of violence that we know are associated with problematic meth use. So it just seems to me that we have a coalition government that's talking about getting crime back under control and making communities safer or feel safer.
And this is an opportunity to make a contribution to that, which is just being cut off.
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