Gang profits have doubled, international organised crime strengthening their hooks, NZ has lost experienced cops, retail crime is up and often being ignored, drug use is at full blown crisis, domestic violence at 8 year highs, and the violent crime numbers are off base
Senior National Party Cabinet Minister tried to have police arrest homelessness in Auckland 18 years ago. This year he succeeded
Violent crime, sexual assaults and retail crime soar under National Party
The Sensible Sentencing Trust’s free publicity, and what defunding the policy means.
Tamatha Paul’s comments on policing have been criticised by Luxon as “insane” but a closer look at what she really said shows how much her comments have been taken out of context.
Meanwhile, National’s law and order track record is only deteriorating.
Golriz Ghahraman didn’t shoplift “again” – but recent media reports made it sound like she did. This article looks back on her history and her treatment by NZ’s political and media class.
It did not take long for the first example of the absurdity of the Government’s gang patch ban to appear.
The Police say it was a private trip to learn about Chinese culture, presumably because it would help their work here. Andrew Little and Anne-Marie Brady without any evidence gave it a sinister cast.
On the same day that National had Parliament pass onerous anti gang laws to address allegedly dramatically increasing numbers of gang members Christopher Luxon lost his cool when it was pointed out to him that the Government is purging the list to reduce the numbers.
The police’s recent successful operation against the Comanchero gang could concievably have been compromised by National’s proposed gang patch ban.
Dan Bidois has unwittingly exposed that National has a list of well honed talking points that are used and repeated ad mauseum. Normally within context, sometimes not.
The National Government has won in its long standing pay dispute with New Zealand police. With Australia offering $20,000 cash bonuses and attractive packages to poach our cops, what’s going to happen to an already demoralised and stretched police force?
Police Minister has been caught out claiming an increase in patrols in Central Auckland when a proper analysis of the data shows that the number of patrols have decreased.
National’s Mark Mitchell has proposed a law that will require Gang Members to apply foundation to any gang insignia tattoos before they can go out into the public.
What will New Zealand look like if Act forms part of the next Government?
Yesterday the Government announced a slate of new powers designed to address gang violence. Newshub chose that day to imply that Labour was soft on gangs because a gang member said on social media not to vote for National.
Christopher Luxon this morning called for the police getting warrantless search powers for arms. But the law already allows for warrantless searches where Arms Act violations are suspected.
It is day 10 of the Anti vax protest on Parliament’s grounds. More cars are being parked illegally and despite considerable disruption to Wellington’s roading network so far not one car has been towed by the police.
A proposed urgent change in the law concerning preparing to commit a terrorist attack may not have stopped the New Lynn attack from happening.
While Prime Minister Ardern is an empathic Prime Minister, good for the country in a crisis, and is genuinely caring, there’s also a time for citizens to say that the state must pay to right wrongs.
Early days so far but the New Lynn attack will spark a debate about the adequacy of the country’s terrorism suppression laws and about citizenship rights.
News broke this afternoon of an attack at Countdown Lynnmall where the assailant was shot and six people injured, three critically. Jacinda Ardern and Police Commissioner have just given a stand up conference and have advised that the assailant was ISIS inspired.
The Government has announced it will publicly apologise for the treatment of Pacific people in the 1970s when they were harassed and discriminated against by the Police because of the place of their birth and the colour of their skin.
Simon Bridges has repeated claims that Police Commissioner Andy Coster is “wokester” and has underlined how weak National’s caucus discipline is.
“The Privacy Commisisoner has said explicitly that any use of facial recognition needs a high level of scrutiny, which for a government agency, effectively means their approval. Police deliberately avoided doing that.”
Two police officers have been shot in West Auckland. Is it time to arm the Police?
National has backed away from its policy of creating Strike Force Raptor Police Unit, a unit based on an Australian force dedicated to terrorising possible gang members.
The Black Lives Matter movement is causing many countries to reflect on their history and practices. And the decision of the police to discontinue the Armed Response Teams Trial and the Childrens Commissioner’s scathing report on Oranga Tamariki’s practices in the uplifting of young children, mostly Maori, from their mothers are examples of the change that is happening.
We have a model of policing by consent and that means we need the vast majority of people to see as legitimate the style in which we’re policing and it’s been clear to me that there has not been acceptance of this as an appropriate style of policing in New Zealand. – Police Commissioner Andrew Coster
The civil war may have ended slavery, the civil rights movement may have changed the legal framework ending segregation in the Southern States, but the idea that white people’s lives matter more has survived into the 21st century.
Viruses and other diseases simply don’t care about abstractions like ‘human rights’. They just want to breed. We need a better legislative toolkit to deal with epidemics. There is only so long that a draconian state of emergency should be maintained. Like 1918 we need to start thinking about the future Health Act with reserve powers like level 2 and 1. In the meantime, we’ll deal with the virus with this imperfect act as a tool.
Heading into phase three, moving into phase four 48 hours later. Here is the video briefing and the quick analysis.
Previous readers of this site will be aware that I’m not a particularly enthusiastic supporter of the police. I’m more in the order of regarding our current police of a necessary burden on society that could do with having considerable improvement. While I find most police members to be what I can respect. I find the organisation protects some real idiots. I pity a commissioner having to deal with this.
Through a series of meetings that led all the way to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Head of the State Services Commission Peter Hughes, and the Police, the Islamic Women’s Council repeatedly warned the highest levels of our civil service that their community was under imminent threat. They were ignored.
National and NZ First are frustrating the passage of the Arms Legislation Bill by raising issues that may appeal to extremists but will not make the country a safer place after the Christchurch massacre.
BREAKING NEWS: Simon Bridges calls on the leader of the opposition to stand down while the SFO case is before the courts.
