Police, prisons, prevention: What would each party do about crime? – The Front Page
Crime has been one of the defining political issues of the past few years.
From ram raids and retail crime to gang violence, youth offending and pressure on police and prisons, parties across the political spectrum agree New Zealanders want to feel safer.
But they have very different ideas about how to get there.
Each week until election day on November 7, The Front Page will be taking you through each party’s policies on issues that matter most to New Zealanders.
This week, we talk to representatives from each party about where they stand on crime and what they want to do to tackle it once and for all.
National
National has largely campaigned on its track record and promises to stay “tough on crime to keep our streets safer”.
The party says its approach to restoring law and order has seen an 85% reduction in ram raids, and restoring consequences for crime has delivered 37,000 fewer victims of violent crime.
They say they’re staying tough on crime through tougher sentences for criminals, cracking down on gangs, more police foot patrols, and more tools and powers for police.
Labour
To end crime in New Zealand, Labour wants to focus on giving police the tools and workforce they need.
“For a start, you should deliver the amount of police officers that you promise,” Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said.
“National promised at the last election that they would have 500 more police officers in two years, I think they said, so we’re at three years now, and they still don’t have those police officers.
“We actually think better equipping our police service, whether that be with the tools and technology they need, or even with the additional support staff in place so that they can be not filling out forms but actually fighting crime.
“There have been record levels of cuts under National that have seen all those support staff, and many of those IT systems police require, not being funded,” she said.
The party has promised to end military-style bootcamps for young offenders and wants to make sure there are good programmes in place to address the rise in meth use.
Act
Act wants to fund 100,000 extra rural patrol hours a year, extend Text 111 access where mobile coverage is unreliable, and increase penalties for poachers and livestock rustlers.
The party would introduce a new offence for coercion by animal abuse and make resident visa holders convicted of serious crime carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years or more liable for deportation.
“We’ll have our own little 501 law here where if you come to New Zealand but you don’t abide by the laws, that’s one thing, but if you do something that’s so serious that you could get 10 years in prison for it, well then we don’t want you here,” Act’s justice spokesperson Nicole McKee told The Front Page.
“It’s as simple as that. You can go back to your country and behave in that manner there.”
New Zealand First
NZ First wants to crack down on international cartels “profiting off misery” in New Zealand, according to the party’s crime spokesperson Casey Costello.
“That is the cash wages money laundering that is driving anti-competitive behavior in construction and horticulture and agriculture.
“This is impacting businesses going into liquidation because they can’t compete. People don’t see those drivers, and that’s what New Zealand First is focusing on: the things that are actually causing harm that most of us don’t realise is occurring.
“We’ve done a lot of work around anti-money laundering legislation, but the search and surveillance legislation isn’t keeping pace with the technology, and this is the part I say a lot.
“They’re moving at the speed of money, and we are moving at the speed of law. Our law needs to be brought up to fit for purpose,” she said.
Greens
The Green Party wants to focus on the root causes and drivers of crime.
“One of the things we have seen that hasn’t worked this term, for example, is when you take a surface-level tough-on-crime approach and instead moving the crime onto a community level, that’s not actually where a lot of the fixes should be happening.
“The Green Party has always talked about how we need to drive away the root causes of crime, so that includes good education, that includes accessibility of food, affordable living, and also warm, dry, and safe homes,” the party’s justice spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan told The Front Page.
A long-term Green policy is drug law reform, where the party wants an evidence-based, health-based approach to alcohol and other drugs to reduce harm.
“If you look at data, drug law reform, drugs should be a health issue and not a criminal issue.
“We just think that the funding currently is not being prioritised in the rehabilitation, in the health space, and the mental health space, and that’s one of the things that the Green Party is proposing as a package of our drug law reform,” he said.
Opportunity
The Opportunity Party’s focus is to ensure that less crime happens in the first place.
“That means intervening early. We have young people who show signs of committing crime, where they might be dropping out of school or causing a bit of trouble on the streets, and we know that those early intervention programs work very well.
“But at the moment they are chronically underfunded, so supporting more of that youth mentoring.
“This is not about being soft on crime or allowing people to get away with things. We absolutely have to hold people accountable. But we also need to make sure that we support them to, uh, not commit another crime,” the party’s leader Qiulae Wong told The Front Page.
The party wants to target the “real drivers of offending” including addiction, undiagnosed conditions like ADHD and FASD, and family violence and dysfunction.
It also wants to scale restorative justice programmes, review victims’ rights, and increase investment in post-release mentoring.
Te Pāti Māori
Te Pāti Māori want to establish an independent Māori Justice Authority that would operate separately from existing Crown agencies.
It would invest in Kaupapa Māori Justice Services such as an independent Māori Legal Aid Service, and expand support for Māori wardens.
The party wants to repeal Three Strikes legislation, gangs legislation, the Sentencing Reform Amendment Act, and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 16.
They want to wipe criminal convictions for drug use and possession, end solitary confinement in prisons, and increase the Steps to Freedom Grant to $1000.
Te Pāti Māori would end military-style bootcamps, close Youth Justice residences by 2030, and abolish prisons by 2040 by replacing them with community-based, restorative, and tikanga-led alternatives.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.