“Our crew has adapted over time. We know that kaupapa Māori is the way to go. We’ve got fluent speakers in our club — every club has. And the Mob is in our pepeha.” Pictured: Mongrel Mob members at a marae. (Supplied)
The coalition government’s new hardline gang legislation comes into effect next month as part of its crackdown on gangs. It includes a provision that makes it illegal for some gang members to have gang insignia in their own homes.
Tiraroa Reweti, who’s spent the past year studying alongside four gang members, asked her classmates for their thoughts on the new laws and their likely impact.
For the past year, I’ve listened to the stories of four very different and interesting men. One of them is a carver and poet from Whaingaroa. One comes from Whanganui, and he and his partner are raising his 13 children. Another is from the East Coast and is in the civil works industry. And the last one, from Ahuriri, was a shearer.
They’re all members of gangs.
Three of them are senior patched members of the Mongrel Mob and the other is a patched member of a well-known motorcycle club.
In total, they’ve spent a combined 120-plus years in what one of them describes as “gangland”. They’ve led complicated, sometimes violent lives, and they’ve spent a whole lot of time in jail. But now they’re about to finish a year of full-time study in bicultural social work at Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa.
As a fellow student, I’ve built a friendship and mutual trust with these men through learning together and the simple practice of sharing stories with one another.
Once a week, we gather in class, and once a month, we have noho marae. It’s a tikanga Māori learning environment.
But what’s been a privilege for me is the experience of discussing topics like āhurutanga (safety and comfort), kaitiakitanga (guardianship and trust), manaakitanga (generosity) and tau kumekume (conflict resolution) with four men who’ve lived much of their lives outside the law. Men who, against the odds, want to make positive, lasting changes for themselves and their whānau.
Next month, despite opposing arguments from legal and human rights lawyers and academics here and in Australia, the new Gangs Act and the Sentencing Amendment Act will come into effect.
The two-part legislation will make gang membership an aggravating factor at sentencing, and further criminalise the display of gang insignia in public. Police can order gang members in public to disperse, and they have the power to apply for a court order banning communication between members for three years. Police can also issue gang insignia prohibition orders which make it illegal to have gang insignia in private settings, even if the insignia belongs to someone else.
The coalition government says the new laws are intended to “publicly denounce and deter harmful gang behaviour and gang membership”. They insist that it will make all of our lives better and our society safer.
But will it? And what about the safety of the many whānau and tamariki living in “gangland”? Whānau who could find themselves constantly living with targets on their backs?
Too often, the people whose lives will be affected most by law changes like this are sidelined and silent. So I invited my classmates to share their whakaaro on the new legislation. This is the first time these four men have been interviewed.
To protect the privacy of their whānau, they asked me not to use their real names, so I’ve referred to them here by the places of their origin: Ahuriri, Whaingaroa, Whanganui and East Coast.
Tiraroa: How long have you been part of your gang?
Ahuriri: Nearly 50 years.
Whaingaroa: Forty years.
Whanganui: Been patched up since 2002. It’s sort of a life journey.
East Coast: About 10 years. Oh, we don’t call ourselves a gang. We’re a club.
Tiraroa: Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood?
Ahuriri: I was a state ward from the age of 10. Before that, my older brother was the violent one. My mother used him to discipline us, but I don’t think she knew half the things he got up to with us. And then at school, I was called a dumb c***. The teacher used to make me wear a dunce hat and stand in the corner and get the other kids to laugh. Mr Nelson was his name.
Whaingaroa: You delve deep and I had a disaffected youth, being Mormon and raised by a single mother. My father wasn’t around, so when I gravitated toward finding extended whānau, I found that in the Mob.
Whanganui: When your father’s in the Mongrel Mob and your koro’s in there, you’re sort of destined. They say the first three years of a kid’s life is developing their brain. My father ended up getting life in jail, but I already had it in my head what I wanted to be, and that was Mongrel Mob.
East Coast: I had a happy childhood. Yeah, it was good. Happy.
Tiraroa: How will this new gang legislation affect you and your whānau?
Ahuriri: It sucks because they’re not only picking on the gang member, they’re picking on the family and kids. It’s wrong and they know it’s wrong, but we will adapt because we aren’t going anywhere.
“How do we mourn our dead? How do we gather for tangi? There’s lots of emotional hurt to come, and we’re gonna take the brunt of it.”
Whaingaroa: A lot of us saw it coming because of the things that have happened in Australia, but for me it’s oppressive. And it’s about identity. When you send your child to train in the military, they’re given a badge or something to show what they’ve achieved. Well, for us, getting a patch identifies someone who’s gone through the hardships of prospecting and they’re now part of the pack.
So, what about our gravestones and waka puehu [the carved bulldog containers for ashes]? How do we mourn our dead? How do we gather for tangi? There’s lots of emotional hurt to come, and we’re gonna take the brunt of it.
Also, police say our patches are a licence to print money, and if that’s the case, how come we’re still poor?
Whanganui: They’re talking about coming into your house and taking taonga that I don’t display to the public, I don’t put out there. I have about 30 patches and most of those were given to me. And the men who wore those patches, they’ve got a history. My kids are related to them. They’re my uncles, they’re my brothers. That’s whakapapa.
And the police coming along taking our whakapapa, it’s almost like they want to erase our history and try to make us something that we’re not.
Look at my face. What am I gonna turn around and be? A librarian?
East Coast: It’s a breach of the Bill of Rights. It’s a breach of Te Tiriti. It’s basically giving the police an open book. It allows them to do whatever they see fit to us, and to me as a club member. It will affect my whānau and my children, my wife. My wife works in a responsible profession, and it could affect her employment. People could end up looking down on her, and my kids could feel that stigma too.
If we get raided, what am I gonna tell my kids? “They’re here because of Dad’s jersey.” Look at it from a kid’s point of view. The kid doesn’t see the patch, they see their father. “Dad, how come the cops are here? How come they put those AR15s in your face?” “Oh, that’s cos of Dad’s jersey, son.” “It’s illegal to have a jersey with a picture, Dad?” “Yes, son, it’s illegal.” They don’t give a shit about the kids.
What’s that gonna create? He’s gonna hate the government. It’s creating another generation of kids who grow up and hate the pigs, hate the government, hate the world.
And as Māori, we’re still a people that’s recovering from colonisation, and this is just another form of colonisation. Eighty percent of us in the gangs are Māori. Māori found another way to be hapū and iwi in an urban setting, and found a way to be together. And now this. It’s just a political smokescreen with big implications.
Tiraroa: What kinds of change have you experienced in your gang or club over the years?
Ahuriri: Heaps of changes. It went from three of us walking up the streets of Napier to now, about 50. Members came and went, hundreds of men. Now, they stay longer.
In my day, there was a lot more freedom. We were allowed anywhere because we were the new kids on the block. Patches were new then, and I was younger. We never changed our clothes, used to stink, pretty much walking around in rags. We thought we looked cool.
There’s been massive change. Our crew has adapted over time. We know that kaupapa Māori is the way to go. We’ve got fluent speakers in our club — every club has. And the Mob is in our pepeha.
Whaingaroa: When I patched up in the mid-80s, that was about the time when there was a big transition away from what you might say was mindless violence. Just violence for violence’s sake. In the bad old days, being educated was shunned. The tougher you were, the better, because you could beat everyone else up. Now it’s about who’s the smartest.
We weren’t Māori, we were Mungies. That’s all changed too. We’ve got Pākehā, Aboriginal bros, Chinese, pretty much all the Islands except Kiribati [laughs]. But we’re still mainly Māori. We’re calling ourselves hapū now, and the Mob is our iwi.
Whanganui: It’s changed massively. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Mongrel Mob were always about themselves. My dad used to chant, right up to the 2000s: “Seig f**ken heil. Mongrel Mob’s the best, f**k the rest.”
But over the last 20 years, it’s become real whānau-orientated. Our whānau are right in the mix of what we do and our lifestyles. It’s created stability in the home, and created the mindset to want to get employment. It’s created the mindset of us getting out of the Peter Pan syndrome and wanting to get an education. Trying to go against old core beliefs.
East Coast: I have, as a club member, evolved over time. I’m a better father, a better husband, a better man, and I’ve beaten addiction. Yeah, my values have changed.
“In the bad old days, being educated was shunned. The tougher you were, the better, because you could beat everyone else up. Now it’s about who’s the smartest.” (Supplied)
Tiraroa: Still, this government says patched gangs are a threat to society. What’s your reply?
Ahuriri: The government created us. We were products of the state.
Whaingaroa: If people are intimidated, and don’t feel safe, okay, we’ll take the patches away. But what changes, except the public’s perception? Look at us now. We’re wearing nothing that tells you we’re senior Mongrel Mob members. But we are. We put on our patches and suddenly we’re murderers?
You know, it’s us they’re picking on now, but people should ask themselves who’s gonna be next?
Whanganui: Police have been convicted of beating people, raping, bad shit, but were all of the police punished? No. One hundred of us can do something positive, but it will take one of my bros to do something negative, and that’s it. We all get hammered.
Everybody deserves to be treated fairly. How often do you hear about a gang member attacking the average Joe Bloggs on the street? It’s always a gang-on-gang thing, and that sometimes spills out onto the street. I understand that the police are trying to protect and uphold safer communities, but they need to make sense of what the gangs are up to and try to communicate with us. Not like this.
East Coast: I mean, what’s dangerous? I think those politicians are dangerous, sitting in Wellington with their magic wands that create these new laws out of thin air. Those are dangerous people.
They’ve got, how many police? Over 10,000? And the government can create legislation overnight that commands that many troops to enforce this new legislation that comes into our homes, that tells us what to wear, what we do, who we can talk to and spend time with — and then they call us dangerous?
Tiraroa: If you could speak directly to Christopher Luxon, Winston Peters and David Seymour what would you say?
Ahuriri: Last time I saw Winston at the Beehive, he said: “Heck, you’re big.” He’s only a little guy, but yeah, they wouldn’t care what we say.
Whaingaroa: It’s hard because I think it would fall on deaf ears. Winston, I’d say, what’s your tūpuna saying to you?
Whanganui: A hundred nasty things come to my head, but as a human and as a person and as a citizen, I’d just like to ask that everyone be treated equally and fairly.
East Coast: I don’t think there’d be much talking. I’d just say to Luxon: “Walk a day in our shoes.”
“The government created us. We were products of the state.” Mongrel Mob members at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.
Tiraroa: Each gang is different, with different leadership and different tikanga, so what kind of response do you imagine there’ll be when police start to execute the new laws?
Ahuriri: I’m not sure. All the leaders have got their own whakaaro on the new legislation. Some are hardliners, so yeah, I’d say there’ll be a lot of trouble, and some of them are not gonna take it. I haven’t actually made up my mind on which way I’m gonna go, I’m just listening to everybody else.
Whaingaroa: I don’t believe police will treat any patch differently but maybe the individual person. Police have physically battled gang members, so they have grudges that this law will play into. There is a thinking that bike clubs will have it much easier.
East Coast: I don’t have an answer for that. Who knows how it’s going to play out or how individuals will respond — but there is anxiety.
Tiraroa: Why did you study bicultural social work?
Ahuriri: This is the first time that I’ve been out of jail and I haven’t been set up to fail. I can associate with my brothers, I can be myself. I’m promoting my walk wherever I go, and the change is clear to everyone who knows how bad I was, who knows me. It’s been a struggle out here, but a good struggle.
Whaingaroa: We all came here as part of a social services trust that set up a prison reintegration kaupapa. It wasn’t just a programme, it was a journey to make real lifestyle changes so that, after two years, when our probation is over, we could carry on going into jails to work with our men. Help them to come out, and stay out. Be better.
It’s about being an example, and it was really working, but the trust closed. So, now, we’ll see what happens.
Whanganui: When this kaupapa popped up, I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know there was āhurutanga (creating a safe space), and it made me reflect on my childhood and that tino rangatiratanga, which is about keeping your people true and directing them along a good pathway.
East Coast: Our course has helped me, and I will definitely encourage others to come and just have a look at the kaupapa. I’m thankful for being able to take these skills and apply them to my whānau in the future.
Tiraroa: Finally, what are your hopes for your children’s future?
Ahuriri: Only the best. I’ve always wanted the best for my whānau.
Whaingaroa: My kids have been around the Mongrel Mob, but not really in it. Not like my bro. His kids and mokopuna are all Mob, so that’s three generations. That’s a whakapapa. I don’t have that.
Whanganui: My baby Lovey calls me “My happiness”. She’s four. That’s a first for me. And I can honestly understand what they say now — that behind every strong man is an even stronger lady. I’ve got a lovely lady. She’s adopted all of my kids with an open heart.
For my kids, I want whatever makes them happy. As a father, I’ve got to expose them to everything possible, whether it’s sports, education, te reo Māori, kapa haka — anything, so they have an option and an opinion on what they think happiness is to them.
I can’t keep them in a structured gang life, like my father did with us when the idol for us kids was the toughest man at the party. I just want them to make good choices, and I want them to know they’re precious and they’re loved.
East Coast: I want the best for my kids. I want them to be happy in themselves and whatever they do.
Tiraroa: Tēnā koutou i whakaaro mai.
(This kōrero has been edited for clarity and length.)
Tiraroa Reweti (Ngāiterangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Arawa) is a journalist and freelance writer who has worked in and around the media for more than 40 years.
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There are more patch members in this country than Police, and let’s get real here, the gangs were created by the government, born out of STATE CHILD ABUSE created by the government incarcerating kids with murderers, rapists and child-abusing adults that were supposed to be protecting them, all controlled by the government and health system. THE GOVERNMENT CREATED THEM.
If we examine New Right theory, where greed is extolled as a business virtue, then gangs engaged in drug sales are entrepreneurs. Has the Polkinghorn case not illustrated that all users are not just the hopeless poor? Some of our politicians just love manipulating public perception in pursuit of power eg Seymour on those greedy Maori or years ago, Peters on the Chinese takeover of NZ. Aren’t we all both ignorant and easily duped?
Personally, I have known the mob to protect their neighbours and to contribute socially without bias. I have also seen a prominent politician debated to a standstill on national tv (and he’s now mooted as a Waitangi Tribunal judge). Makes one wonder how it really works eh? The debater was a self taught Mongrel Mob member. When one reads the real history of NZ, one sees that there is a real reason for Maori angst. If you are interested look up Section 71 of the 1852 Constitution Act drafted by the Settler govt of the day. Maori are and were right. So before we pass judgement on gangs take an in-depth look at the attempts to destroy the indigenous culture of this country. Pepperpotting legislative terrorism has been historically rife and is still happening today. Why? Because Maori and the treaty stand in the way of the corporate rape of our country.
Personally, l prefer gang members well labelled like the police. Then there is no surprise in spite of what I’m told to think by self-serving politicians. Also having interacted with gang members over many years I have not felt unsafe. There is a code. Ask yourself if you have the courage to delve into the reality before making up your mind. I am pakeha and will strenuously oppose Seymour’s rubbish and will hope police take this legislation with a large grain of salt.
I’m Tūhoe ancestry and we all know there’s been disquiet over the years. There’s no quick fix to gangs. There are some ratbags and criminals but they’re in all walks. I think extending a hand of friendship will do more than pushing people into a corner. Ngā Mihi
It takes a while for change to be recognised and many people will associate gangs with lawlessness and violence and will be traumatised by seeing gangs.
Why not help the process by changing the patches or losing them in public if doing good and association with whakapapa is the real culture?
I have worked among the gangs and I see those who embrace Te Ao Maori and who are proud of their whakapapa. I still see gangs however in the same realm as addictions. It is an outcome of past trauma. Gangs are not born of Tupuna, Whenua nor is does it carry Mana. It is not born through tikanga. It is a colonised concept within violence that can be in breach of tikanga. In times past our people were respectful, healthy, strong, they did not violate women in violence, did not harm innocents, did not make a living through destruction of others. I am now old enough to speak openly of reality as my time is in the winter. I see gangs in the same realm as cults. It is not our strengths but our weakness
That is a great piece of wisdom, thank you.
Thank you for your korero guys. You’re usually seen not heard. Change is certain, don’t underestimate resilience.
Let’s face it. We are dealing (or rather being dealt to) by what can only be described as an openly racist coalition determined to drag race relations back into the dark ages of colonialism. So much progress has been made in the past 50 yrs only to destroyed in a very short time. I have stood toe to toe with protesters at Waitangi 40 years ago and wondered about the threats of violence. Only now I have learnt to appreciate the need (at that time) for actions taken by protesters against systematic racism and governmental failure to recognise the the rights of tangata whenua.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this new legislation is but a smoke screen. A populist ploy by a racist government pandering to it racist base .. populist politics. Welcome to Trump land! Having said that. I also, regardless, having seen the results of state care, poverty, violence, degregration and isolation though poverty, the list goes on, that these groups, clubs, iwi, whanau, call them what you will, have the power the knowledge and the intelligence to make positive changes. I believe the will is also there. Every parent wants better for their children. Let’s get on with it. If what we have done so far hasn’t worked then surely it’s time for all of us to try something different. One of the first signs is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. At the end of the day we all get screwed by the system. How much we get screwed often depends on the colour of our skin (mine is white) how much money we have and if we are in some way recognised in society. Kia kaha
I often think about gangs, and how they look and feel to be a proxy for hapu, and our sense of belonging to a community. Ultimately much of their way of economic participation is through trade which is not considered legal. When I watched the “Dark Horse” recently, with the father dying, and he believing his son was best protected and looked after in a gang, it made me see things differently. I do wonder if these choices are made based on needing a place to belong and a way to earn a living.
There are many criminals in pakeha society, many have white collars. What if those who belonged to gangs could learn skills necessary to run businesses which do not sit within the dark or grey area of the economy? If their energy could be placed into developing those enterprises? It is hard to believe you can be more than what people expect of you. What if someone told them they could easily be more?
I do hope my research one day allows me to chat with gangs and how they can create legitimate businesses to care for their members and whanau without having to break the law. Perhaps I am naive, but I do see people wishing to belong, and under most hard exteriors, is a human being inside, with a love for community and family.
For these families, it’s their only way of living. Being poor is a huge part of it. But racism and hate are also huge parts of it. Many of the gang kids I’ve taught have high behaviour needs, low grades and are low on hope for their future. It’s heartbreaking to have an 8yo tell you he’ll be in jail by the time he’s 16 because that’s what happens in his family, so why bother learning to read. It sucks when they come to school shell-shocked because of the latest violence or because they’ve seen mum doing the dirty and got yelled at. It’s gross when 12yo girls get active with 17yo boys. They say the police don’t care about the positive impact the patch has on their kids… in my experience it’s all about grown men and women avoiding taking responsibility for their own behaviour and choices. People refusing to get mental health help or an education because they hate “colonial systems” that much. It’s about finding excuses and finding protection and enablers amongst their associates so they can continue the cycle of perceived oppression. Māori were once oppressed for being Māori, we all agree. A gang is not Māori. It’s as Māori as the church is Māori. It goes after the poor and those seeking connection for its own goals. Its aim may once have been to help and for some, on the surface it may do that, but make no mistake- It is self-serving and will protect itself from its own evils.
I agree that banning the patch isn’t going to work, but I also think that gangs are a pox on the children they raise. You enable hate, you fight, you steal, you use and sell drugs, you abuse, you spend years in jail because of it and your children become traumatised. There is no love of doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing in your homes. Everything is transactional. I’d happily take books from a librarian that was an ex gang member. So would most of us reading. We get that it’s your identity, but knowing what I know. Knowing how your kids are treated, neglected, how you pollute their thinking from a young age, I can’t back you guys up. I want to, but I can’t. Gangs need to go.
You want to make a club? Make a hiking club with cool jackets. Make a Kapahaka club, a camping club or a dad’s group or a riding club or whatever. You should be allowed to be a warrior and still be able to come home and be vulnerable with your family instead of being ridiculed by your women for being weak. Spend time with your kids. Get your kids reading and doing their times tables. Back them up when they want to go to uni and get a good job. Stop breaking the law like you’re entitled to wrecking other people’s lives just because they’re white. Stay out of jail yourself. Break the cycle. Don’t make excuses for it. It’s hard work, and hard work sucks. But nobody can do it for you. You’ve gotta do it for your kids. Don’t like the system? News flash, nobody does. I don’t want kids put against kids anymore. Stop blaming others. The police aren’t great, but they’re the clean-up crew. They’re there to clean up your mess, make no mistake.
I feel conflicted reading this.
I accept an analysis that the way this society is structured has caused many of the underlying social and economic factors that feed into the creation of gangs. I also can see that the current govt are simplistically playing to their base.
However, I struggle to see gangs as a positive solution to the problem. It’s as if they have created their own jail of the mind by engaging in activities that reinforce the worst tendencies in people. Getting free by freeing themselves and contributing to a positive alternative to this society would be better. Not easy, but the right things often aren’t.
Barrie – agreed, e.g. when gangs are behind the sale of a lot of the “P” in poorer areas.
Kia ora, Barrie. I just had some thoughts on this which may or may not add some additional flavour. I think a key thing here is perspective. When you say “this society”, it sounds as though your perspective is one where you might have been appreciated for whatever your contribution has been to the society you identify with.
I was born in 1964 and adopted. Even though I grew up in a stable whānau, attended school and whatnot, I had an understanding that I should curb any ambition because there isn’t really a place for me, tangata whenua, in “this society”. Consider the lonely perspective of state care. Or perhaps, the perspectives of intergenerational participation where you belong in one context (gang/club, now for these members iwi/hapu) but not in the other (where we are judged unfairly). These are the societies from where decisions to make a positive contribution are made.
The point the interviewees are making is that they are making positive changes and contributions to their whānau, and indeed to the societies that they belong to. A key point I picked up on is regeneration of te reo. From my perspective, as one who feels the intergenerational trauma of the loss of te reo, this is a massively positive contribution to the society I want to belong to. It is clear from the wider context of society, as seen in this current government, the rhetoric of David Seymour, and so on, that our reo, our tangata, are treated with such a high degree of disrespect, what positive alternatives are available to us? These are just some reflections I had when reading the article and then your comment.
We are all different, but many of our feelings are the same. A need to belong, for example. I had a keen sense of how these men have felt over the course of their lives and recognise some of those feelings in myself. So, perspectives. What if we think about Gaza for a moment? If you were on the Israeli task force, but let’s call them a government sanctioned gang, how easy would it be to flip, and go, hey maybe this contribution I am making to this society isn’t so positive? What would it take to gain that insight? This is colonisation happening live and fully analysed on Al Jazeera. But nothing is stopping it. What choices will surviving (if any) Palestinians have to make positive contributions to their society (whatever shape that will take in time)? Assimilate or die? They don’t even have that choice. If your land is taken and your whānau are dead, how do you even survive? Plus many of the children in this situation have lost limbs. How do they cope with their disability? How are they coping now? This very same process of assuming governance of a country and its people is in the history of our country.
The government let alone society have painted all patch members to be monsters when in reality they are humans. The government doesn’t like the fact these individuals have found somewhere they call home/whānau. With the National government it’s all about control and power. You can’t penalise the whole club/gang for one individuals mistakes that’s a load of bull. Instead of being afraid, why not see those individuals without their patches etc etc and look at them as human beings. You would be surprised they are pretty cool, funny and easy going but in today’s society they have painted a picture that all patch members are scary, mean, and rude based off how they look etc etc. If anything I see them in survival mode because society has put them in a box to be something they are not. Yes, there are a few bad apples but who are we to judge others based on looks and what not. This needs to stop and people need to wake up government turning us against each other sitting in their high chairs making money off those that need the help most.
It is not the government but the people who respect others in this NZ society. Non gang people do not accept the way gang members think they can do as they want without consequences.
Great to see some gang members are sick of their lifestyle and they take responsibility and change there ways.