Harawira on PI Bill

Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill – 2R
Hone Harawira, Maori Party Member of Parliament, Te Tai Tokerau
Tuesday 7 September 2010; 5.15pm

This bill is important to ensuring that security guards, bouncers and doormen, now provide relevant police information, wear authorised badges, and hold licences - or cop fines of up to $60,000.

So it was encouraging to see submissions from the industry itself calling for a private investigator’s code of conduct to be established, and it may well be that further amendments are needed to make that happen in the interests of the rights and safety of both the public and the security staff themselves.

This bill is also important because many of the people engaged in the industry are Maori and other Pacific Islanders, many of whom were originally enticed into the business because of their size and their menace, without any serious consideration being given to the need for proper training - an area which will hopefully also be standardised within the industry from now on.

I know from mixing with security personnel at various pubs, clubs and sporting events around the north that many of them already undergo training as part of getting their formal NZQA qualifications, and that many are expected to get referees, and even police checks, but I note that those standards differ between agencies and that in some cases, staff have no qualifications at all, nor are they being encouraged to do anything about it.

Mr Speaker, I would also like to take this opportunity to speak briefly about facial tä moko and the difference in standards as they are applied to people who carry the moko, around the country.

Some years back, a Gisborne woman was banned from a bar because of her moko, and last year, one of Aotearoa’s leading tä moko artists, Mark Köpua, was banned from entering Christchurch’s Bourban Bar, because his moko was supposed to represent gang markings.

In his response, Mark Köpua said of his moko, “It's my heritage, where I'm from, who my ancestors were, it's everything about me”. He laid a complaint, and to their credit, the Bourban Bar apologised and created new policy to ensure the same mistake would not be made again.

Mind you, my own view on this particular issue is that those who choose to wear the moko would do well to steer clear of places where drunkenness, ignorance and violence, are likely to degrade the mana of both the moko and the wearer.

Mr Speaker, the Maori Party will be supporting this bill at second reading, but we will also be advocating for the inclusion of clear cultural standards consistent with Tikanga Maori, to ensure that the boorish insults that Mark Köpua had to endure, do not happen to others in the future.

ends