Tough Australian anti-gang laws would need to work in practice before New Zealand would consider introducing similar legislation here, Justice Minister Judith Collins says.
A standing council of Australian state and territorial attorneys-general yesterday agreed to work towards nationally consistent legislation that would allow for certain groups to be declared criminal organisations.
The legislation would also allow the activities of members of banned organisations and other people involved in serious criminal activity to be controlled.
The move comes after a number of states introduced their own legislation to clamp down on the likes of outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Ms Collins, who took part in the two-day meeting in Canberra this week, said she was interested to see how successful those existing laws have been.
She noted at least two states faced challenges over the legality of their legislation and another had not yet applied to have a single criminal group declared as such.
Ms Collins said she would keep a watching brief on the legislation but New Zealand would not rush in a new law.
"I'm interested to see what they're doing, but we need to make sure that we have legislation that works and that we wouldn't proceed with anything unless we saw that it was working,'' she told APNZ.
"Given that there has not yet been a successful case in the two years that some of them have had legislation in place, it's important that we wait and see.''
One issue for New Zealand was the freedom of association provisions under the Bill of Rights Act, which Ms Collins said the Government took very seriously.
"But we are also not naive enough to think that there are not organised criminal groups working in New Zealand. So let's see how successful [the Australian legislation is] and whether or not it makes a difference, because we should not just simply have legislation for the sake of it.''
