Gill's Bill may never have made it through Parliament but another law already exists, under which you can be found guilty of an offence by mere physical association with lawbreakers. Section 86 of the Crimes Act, relating to crimes against public order, states that a person may be found guilty of the crime of Unlawful Assembly if he is a member of a group which acts in such a manner that a reasonable person would have feared a 'tumultuous' breach of the peace. The maximum penalty is a year in prison.

The law has not been invoked for some time, one of the few cases being against Te Kooti in 1886 for his stand against the British colonialists. It was rediscovered when the police conducted research into existing laws in preparation for the Springbok tour. The hopes of the police and the government were more than fulfilled when they gave the 'Unlawful Assembly' law a test run against people arrested during the demonstrations against US military bases at Weedons, Christchurch.