A reported truce between two rival gangs behind a spate of drive-by shootings in Auckland in recent weeks shows why National's proposal to ban patches would work, MP Mark Mitchell says.
The NZ Herald reported on Thursday a ceasefire had been reached between the Killer Beez and Tribesmen gangs after weeks of tit-for-tat shootings.
They'd allegedly been responsible for more than 20 firearms incidents since the end of last month.
According to the Herald, one of the conditions of the ceasefire was that Killer Beez members wouldn't wear their patches in Ōtara - a suburb where both gangs claim a historical connection.
It comes after National Party leader Christopher Luxon called for banning gang patches in public areas and on social media sites.
Now that a ceasefire had reportedly been reached between the two gangs, National said it wants the Government to take their party's anti-gang policies seriously.
"Number one - if they stop shooting for awhile that's a good thing because you've got communities that are deeply traumatised because of it," said Mitchell, the National's Police spokesperson.
"We've just actually introduced an anti-insignia and gang patch Bill so I just think that completely reinforces why we see this as an issue when we've just had three weeks of violent gun crime," he told reporters in Tauranga.
Mitchell said Western Australia's Labor government passed anti-gang patch legislation late last year.
It was something that would apply "pressure to the gangs" in New Zealand, he said.
"This isn't new legislation - it's legislation that was passed by the Western Australian government to deal with the same problems that we're experiencing, and it's working for them."
The National Party has also proposed stopping gangsters from gathering in public and prohibiting them from accessing guns.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has rejected the National Party's proposal to ban gang patches, saying there was no "evidence base" for it.
The Government, instead, was willing to work to accelerate the passing of Firearms Prohibitions Orders (FPOs) legislation through Parliament, she told AM on Monday.
"When you've got a public shooting, what can we do to make sure that we come down harder on those events? Regardless of whether you've got a patch on or not, that is behaviour that we come down on really hard and we've got all the tools we need."
