Heather du Plessis-Allan: What will happen with the new gang patch ban?

Author: Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2024, 4:43pm

I'm finding it quite amusing listening to the critics line up to tell us all the reasons why the Government's ban on gang patches won’t work.

Clearly, they don't remember what happened in Whanganui.

Ultimately, the Whanganui gang patch ban hit the same trouble that this Government's gang patch ban might also hit, which is the Bill of Rights Act.

But before it hit that trouble, it actually worked. There was a 15 percent drop in the number of serious patched gang members living in Whanganui in the first 9 months of the bylaw

The reason for that is because they were either locked up, or they left town to get away from it. And that’s exactly what's happened in Australia as well.

Queensland was the first to ban the gang patches in around 2016. As a result, a bunch of gang members left the state. The number of patched gang members ended up, at one stage, as low as 139.

After that, a bunch of other states followed.

So in the end, it seems the gangs have ended up in Canberra because they know the bleeding hearts there will never do something as harsh as banning gang patches

And as a result, they have a huge number of shootings in Canberra now.

Now, our trouble is that we can't drive the gang members into another state. If we have a nationwide gang patch ban, it applies everywhere.

But I reckon what might happen is that gangs will move from areas that are well policed, where they get grief for their patches- to areas that are not well policed where they can march around freely with their patches on.

And that’s not ideal, because actually you want to get rid of them altogether.

But it’s an improvement on the current situation, where they are everywhere with their patches on.

So I think this is a case of ignoring the critics. If this plan gets across the line, it’ll work. It already has in the past.

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