April 28, 2025 • 18 mins
Crime is a constant hot topic of debate in New Zealand – one that is rarely far from the front pages.
The recent alleged murder of University of Auckland student Kyle Whorrall in Auckland has served as a reminder of the randomness that comes with violent crime – with a 16 year old now charged with his murder.
But the Government is touting that violent crime is on the decline – years before their intended target.
So are our streets really any safer – and is vibe more than policy influencing this?
Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald senior journalist Derek Cheng is with us to discuss the stats.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Kioda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Crime is
a constant hot topic of debate in New Zealand, one
that is rarely far from the front pages. The recent
alleged murder of University of Auckland student Kyl Warrell in
(00:26):
Auckland has served as a reminder of the randomness that
comes with violent crime, with a sixteen year old now
charged with murder. But the government is touting that violent
crime is on the decline, years before their intended target.
So I R streets really any safer? And is vibe
more than policy influencing this Today on the Front Page
(00:48):
ends at Herald's senior journalist Derek Cheng is with us
to discuss the stats. Derek, So we've spoken to you
before about the official New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey.
Now the full report isn't available publicly yet, but the
(01:09):
government has already touted some of the key figures from it,
haven't they.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, So they came out and they were like, oh,
this is an amazing result. We've seen an enormous reduction
in the number of victims of violent crime and they
have a public service target to reduce that number by
twenty thousand compared to when the government took office in
October twenty twenty three. And the latest figures, which was
a quarter the result, which shows the numbers in the
(01:36):
year to February, showed that they were actually already ahead
of that target. There were twenty eight thousand fewer victims
for that year to February compared to the year to
October twenty twenty three. So it's not very surprising I
guess that the government comes out and talks about what
a great achievement this is, that their policies are working.
And I mean any politician would want to beat their
(01:57):
chests whenever they've they've achieved, and even to pass this target,
this target wasn't really you know, it's for twenty twenty nine,
so we're four years ahead and well below the number,
and that is you know, something that any politician would
want to would want a song and dance about.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, the government did admit that these numbers are volatile,
though what does that mean really, Well, the.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Numbers are volatile because any crime is a really complete expecture, right,
I mean, and Bible crime in particular, there's multiple factors
that feed into that equation and that they go far
beyond what a government is doing. They include access to
healthcare or good housing or good education. It's what the
economy is doing, what household disposable income is or is not.
(02:42):
The numbers will go up and down because there are
so many intersecting factors into you know, the levels of crime.
But the government didn't really allude to those when they
said that the numbers are going to be volatile. What
Justice Minister Paul goldsmanth said was these numbers are volatile.
So when and if the numbers go up, it's basically
(03:03):
Labour's fault, which is a typically political thing to say.
When you ignore all the other factors and things are
going well, then the government's doing very well. Thanks, thanks
very much, Pats on the back. Things are going wrong.
It's the previous government's fault and things are going wrong
despite what we're doing, and which is obviously a very
colored political way of viewing things. So when Goldsmith talked
(03:24):
about the vaults early the numbers, he didn't really talk
about how things can go up and down. And there
are so many factors involved in the equation of crime.
He was really saying, it's they got off again. It's
going to be Labour's fault.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Tackling law and order has been a major focus of
this government. Can you remind us of some of the
policies that they've introduced.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Well, the most recent one was the passing of the
sentencing reforms. There's a number of policies from National and
in the coalition agreements with Newdyland First and the Act
Party which are designed to basically LinkedIn sentences and stop
what the government says is the the two leniency sentences
that happened under Labour's watch. Those include like capping the
(04:07):
maximum discount the judge can go at forty percent. There
is a sort of manifestly unjust get out of jail
clause there that's involved there. That includes limiting how many
times you can get a discount for remorse or youth.
It includes encouraging concurrent sentences if someone offends while they're
on bail. So there's a number of there's a number
(04:28):
of specific policies in that law change, and that's estimated
to increase the prison population by I think thirteen hundred
additional prisoners in the next ten years. There's last year
they passed the anti gang legislation which had a number
of things and including the gang page ban for example.
Obviously three strikes the second coming of three strikes is
(04:49):
part of the restoring law and Order agenda. These things
are actually alluded to by Godsmith when he talked about
how our work is seeing great results in the reduction
of these in the number of victims of violent crime.
He also talked about scrapping the state funding for the
cultural reports. Cultural reports a sort of background information that
can be given to a judge at sentencing and Minister
(05:10):
of Justice and analysis shows that those reports on average
usually led to attempercent discount and honest sentence.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Great to be here with our Minister of Justice and
Minister of Police, Paul Gosmith and Martin Mitchell. And the
reason is that also some good encouraging signs. I think
some good early encouraging momentum around the reduction and trying
to meet our reduction of twenty thousand victims of violent
crime being reduced by twenty twenty nine, and we're making
some good progress on that, and I think that's a
collective effort from both ministers and their teams. But certainly
(05:43):
the police, the corrections team, but also the general public
as well. And so I just want to say thank
you as we try and restore law and order in
New Zealand. It's good to be celebrating or less acknowledging
some of these milestones. Acknowledging also that we have a
long way to go to get to where we need
to get to.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
If not the government policies, then what is contributing to
this decrease? Do you think can they take credit for
the vibe that they're putting out there, as Justice Minister
Paul Goldsmith said to.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You, Well, an important point in all of these policies
that Goldsmith cited is that they haven't really taken effect yet.
So they passed their sentencing reforms, but they don't come
into effect until the end of Journe three strikes two
point zero. Even though the legislation was passed at the
end of last year, it doesn't commence until the middle
of June. The anti gang legislation has been in force.
But promise with Christopher Luxen in the announcement where they
(06:36):
beat a their chests and said look how good we're
doing in law or order, he said that the new
tools for police to fight gangs were already quote unquote
unearthing illegal guns and illegal drugs, but the means to
do that was via a prohibition order, which a cork
can hand down to a gang member if they violated
the gang patch three times. No such orders have been given,
(06:58):
So he's saying that something's happened, which clearly hasn't happened.
And as for the cultural reports, yes they have been
they've had their state funding acts, but it's a really
long stretch to say that that one thing could have
led to a twenty seven percent reduction in the number
of victims of violent crime. So when I was interviewing
Goldsmith about this and he was talking about how great
(07:21):
the government was doing, I asked him, don't you think
there are maybe factors independent of the government that might
be contributing to this And he said, well, you know,
obviously there are broader factors, and one very significant factor
is the messaging from the government, as in the vibe
is really important and it's a message that filters through
the entire system. And he said that, you know, acknowledging
(07:43):
judicial independence, and the government can't tell a judge what
sentence to give, it can only set the law, which
the judiciary then interprets in handing down it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Sentence, what are the stats have you seen?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, I mean crime stats are really crime stats are
a real puzzle or right, because there's multiple different stats
and politicians love to cherry pick whatever stats they want
to back up the things that they say. So we've
talked about the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, and
that's probably the most robust survey because it interviews thousands
(08:16):
of New Zealander's age fifteen and over and it accounts
for and in doing that it is able to account
for unreported crime, and that is only about a quarter
of crime is ever actually reported to police. But in
the latest announcement from the government, they're actually looking at
quarterly results from that survey, which isn't meant to be
an annual survey. In the footnotes themselves in the survey,
(08:39):
they talk about the quarterly results having to take them
with a bit of a pinch of salt because it's
harder to standardize the results for the demographics of New
Zealand on a quarterly basis than it is an annual basis.
So the quarterly results that they just announced where they
had such a big reduction. It is very good news, obviously,
but it is also like not as robust as the
annual results. Annual results they were released earlier this year
(09:03):
and it was up to i think the year to
October twenty twenty four, and at that point the number
of adult victims of violent crime was much higher than
the latest quarterly results and has been more or less
the same since the survey started in twenty eighteen. There's been,
(09:24):
you know, there's been a bit of ups and downs,
but it's what they called no statistically significant difference, and
it includes during the whole tenure that Labor was in office.
Then there are other there are several other statistics. There
are victimization reports to police, so if I go and
report a crime to police, that's recorded as a victimization
to police. And National has used those statistics to show
(09:48):
or to claim a rise in violent crime under Labor,
but they're really only looking at one thing, and that
some acts intended to cause injury, and it's true that
those did rise a lot under Labor, But if you
look at court data, which looked that people charged and
people convicted, then those numbers are much more static. So
the main takeaway from this is that there are a
(10:08):
number of ways that we look at crime statistics, and
none of them are particularly definitive. Some are considered more
robust than others, and overall you're generally looking for trends.
The trends in crime data show a general reduction in
crime pre pandemic years heading down to sort of twenty
(10:29):
twenty two, and since then they've been rising, particularly in
including a violent crime, and since maybe the middle of
last year that has kind of appears to have picked.
But then it's very early days looking at that data
given that it's so recent.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Obviously, we mentioned o Worrel in the intro and while
that's obviously still a developing case, it is believed to
be a random attack. At this stage. There's not really
anything that can the government can do to police random attacks,
(11:11):
though is there not directly?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
They can do things in general that can help to
address things like that. And one of the things that
Police Minister Mitchell said when he was talking about the
reduction and violent crime victims was that there's been a
forty percent increase in police on the beat and having
more police on the beat visible on the streets has
been shown to be effective and generally making communities feel
(11:37):
safer and being more of a deterrent towards crime. But
you know, crime is often impulsive. It's often fueled by
substance addictions, by trauma, and given those quite volatile factors,
when it strikes, it's often spontaneous, impulsive, and quite random.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Even There are some other plans in their early stages
at the moment the government wants to work on. One
is expanding citizen arrest powers, which we've talked about before
on this podcast, but I understand that the Ministry of
Justice isn't a huge fan of it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So this was work that started with consultation with the
Ministry or Advisory Group for victims of retail crime. Retail
crime has been on the rise quite significantly. Part of
that is down to better reporting mechanisms. The system AURA,
which police introduced, has made it much easier to report
retail crime, but there is also a general feeling that
retail crime itself has been increasing. So the government is
(12:33):
trying to crack down on retail crime and the first
thing that they wanted to look at, and they wanted
the Ministry Advisory Group to look at the citizens arrest
So those powers are quite unclear. The Ministry Advisory Group,
which you would expect, comes down or came down really
strongly in favor of empowering citizens of rest even when
a crime hadn't taken place. You know, they wanted to
(12:54):
empower citizens' rest when you had a reasonable belief that
a crime was taking placement. Wasn't really prepared to go
that for obvious reasons. They've instead sort of found in
middle ground where they want to clarify those powers and
broaden them and they hope that that will make a
material difference. Whenever they have proposals that they asked irrelevant
(13:14):
officials to look them over. And the justice officials in
this case were not exactly endorsing the government proposal here.
They said that the proposal won't really have any desire,
in fact, won't really have any impact on public safety,
and came with a bunch of risks, and those included
people making citizens arrests when police wouldn't make an arrest.
And there could be a number of reasons for that,
you know, for example, there's no evidence for police to
(13:36):
be able to pursue a prosecution. They said that there's
a risk of escalating violence. We've already seen this when
a dairy worker in Auckland was killed after he confronted
someone who stole something from the shop and confronted them
one hundred meters from the store and was stabbed and killed.
So that's not to say that the citizens arrest powers
don't need to be clarified. The Justice officials actually said yes,
it would be helpful to clarify them, but they didn't
(13:57):
recommend going as far as the government did and is
doing is they want to be able to for people
to make a citizens arrest at any time of day
and using any reasonable force, and that can include striking
someone or causing them bodily harm if, for example, someone
is resisting arrest. Currently, the citizens arrest provisions is restricted.
It needs to be an offense that carries the punishment
(14:19):
of three years in jail, and for stolen goods, that
needs to be stolen goods worth more than one thousand dollars,
and you know you're not going to grab someone and
see what's in their hands and then grab a calculator
and see if that adds up to a thousand dollars.
So there's definitely a case that those powers do need
to be clarified. The danger or the fear here is
that it will lead to all kinds of vigilanty justice,
which will actually make public safety matters worse rather than better.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Legislative changes introduced in twenty twenty play stay heavy regulatory
burden on these volunteers. While some of these changes have
been positive, others went beyond what is necessary to ensure
public safety. I've heard from club members and range operators
(15:08):
that this regulatory burden is too high it may force
some to consider closure. This bill simplifies the regulatory requirements
for clubs and rangers to reduce the burden on operators
while maintaining safety requirements.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I believe there are ongoing revisions to the gun
safety laws and three D printed guns are one of
the latest talking points here. Can you tell me what's
happening around that?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, the government has agreed with the National Party has
agreed with the Egg Party to rewrite the Arms Act.
The Arms Act is I think forty two years old
and is no longer as well out of date basically,
and it has no provisions for three D printing of
firearms or firearms parts. This is a small problem, but
an increasing problem in New Zealand police have confiscated a
(16:02):
number of three D printed firearms and firearms parts and
charged people with offenses, but they actually want a specific
offense created where it's illegal to possess any blueprints for
firearms parts and firearms themselves to be three D printed.
That is still being consulted on. The government rewrite of
(16:24):
the Arms Act is scheduled for some time this parliamentary term.
There's just been consultation on that over the summer period.
A bill to enact what the government wants is probably
not expected too much later this year and to be
passed sometime next year. But it was interesting because I
was speaking with the minister responsible for that rewright, Nicole McKee.
(16:45):
You know, she said she's really trying to look at
a balance here because some of the three D printed
innovation that she's seen by New Zealand companies is only
happening in New Zealand and it could be a real
boost for economic and small business growth. She talked about
having visited somewhere that was making really lightweight stocks, which
(17:07):
would be of huge interest to the Defense Force, huge
interest to hunters, anyone who carries a lot of that
sort of equipment. You know, their loads could be a
hell of a lot lighter. Obviously, she doesn't want criminals
to be able to get your hands on that, So
how you balance that from religious littive standpoint is a
really difficult question. So we'll wait and see what the
(17:30):
government comes up with it. In the meantime, police will
still go after those three D printed guns and gun parts.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Thanks for joining us, Derek Cool. That's it for this
episode of the Front Page. You can read more about
today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzherld dot co
dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills
and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer. I'm
(17:58):
Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
another look behind the headlines.
Kioda.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Crime is
a constant hot topic of debate in New Zealand, one
that is rarely far from the front pages. The recent
alleged murder of University of Auckland student Kyl Warrell in
(00:26):
Auckland has served as a reminder of the randomness that
comes with violent crime, with a sixteen year old now
charged with murder. But the government is touting that violent
crime is on the decline, years before their intended target.
So I R streets really any safer? And is vibe
more than policy influencing this Today on the Front Page
(00:48):
ends at Herald's senior journalist Derek Cheng is with us
to discuss the stats. Derek, So we've spoken to you
before about the official New Zealand Crime and Victim Survey.
Now the full report isn't available publicly yet, but the
(01:09):
government has already touted some of the key figures from it,
haven't they.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, So they came out and they were like, oh,
this is an amazing result. We've seen an enormous reduction
in the number of victims of violent crime and they
have a public service target to reduce that number by
twenty thousand compared to when the government took office in
October twenty twenty three. And the latest figures, which was
a quarter the result, which shows the numbers in the
(01:36):
year to February, showed that they were actually already ahead
of that target. There were twenty eight thousand fewer victims
for that year to February compared to the year to
October twenty twenty three. So it's not very surprising I
guess that the government comes out and talks about what
a great achievement this is, that their policies are working.
And I mean any politician would want to beat their
(01:57):
chests whenever they've they've achieved, and even to pass this target,
this target wasn't really you know, it's for twenty twenty nine,
so we're four years ahead and well below the number,
and that is you know, something that any politician would
want to would want a song and dance about.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, the government did admit that these numbers are volatile,
though what does that mean really, Well, the.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Numbers are volatile because any crime is a really complete expecture, right,
I mean, and Bible crime in particular, there's multiple factors
that feed into that equation and that they go far
beyond what a government is doing. They include access to
healthcare or good housing or good education. It's what the
economy is doing, what household disposable income is or is not.
(02:42):
The numbers will go up and down because there are
so many intersecting factors into you know, the levels of crime.
But the government didn't really allude to those when they
said that the numbers are going to be volatile. What
Justice Minister Paul goldsmanth said was these numbers are volatile.
So when and if the numbers go up, it's basically
(03:03):
Labour's fault, which is a typically political thing to say.
When you ignore all the other factors and things are
going well, then the government's doing very well. Thanks, thanks
very much, Pats on the back. Things are going wrong.
It's the previous government's fault and things are going wrong
despite what we're doing, and which is obviously a very
colored political way of viewing things. So when Goldsmith talked
(03:24):
about the vaults early the numbers, he didn't really talk
about how things can go up and down. And there
are so many factors involved in the equation of crime.
He was really saying, it's they got off again. It's
going to be Labour's fault.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Tackling law and order has been a major focus of
this government. Can you remind us of some of the
policies that they've introduced.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Well, the most recent one was the passing of the
sentencing reforms. There's a number of policies from National and
in the coalition agreements with Newdyland First and the Act
Party which are designed to basically LinkedIn sentences and stop
what the government says is the the two leniency sentences
that happened under Labour's watch. Those include like capping the
(04:07):
maximum discount the judge can go at forty percent. There
is a sort of manifestly unjust get out of jail
clause there that's involved there. That includes limiting how many
times you can get a discount for remorse or youth.
It includes encouraging concurrent sentences if someone offends while they're
on bail. So there's a number of there's a number
(04:28):
of specific policies in that law change, and that's estimated
to increase the prison population by I think thirteen hundred
additional prisoners in the next ten years. There's last year
they passed the anti gang legislation which had a number
of things and including the gang page ban for example.
Obviously three strikes the second coming of three strikes is
(04:49):
part of the restoring law and Order agenda. These things
are actually alluded to by Godsmith when he talked about
how our work is seeing great results in the reduction
of these in the number of victims of violent crime.
He also talked about scrapping the state funding for the
cultural reports. Cultural reports a sort of background information that
can be given to a judge at sentencing and Minister
(05:10):
of Justice and analysis shows that those reports on average
usually led to attempercent discount and honest sentence.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Great to be here with our Minister of Justice and
Minister of Police, Paul Gosmith and Martin Mitchell. And the
reason is that also some good encouraging signs. I think
some good early encouraging momentum around the reduction and trying
to meet our reduction of twenty thousand victims of violent
crime being reduced by twenty twenty nine, and we're making
some good progress on that, and I think that's a
collective effort from both ministers and their teams. But certainly
(05:43):
the police, the corrections team, but also the general public
as well. And so I just want to say thank
you as we try and restore law and order in
New Zealand. It's good to be celebrating or less acknowledging
some of these milestones. Acknowledging also that we have a
long way to go to get to where we need
to get to.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
If not the government policies, then what is contributing to
this decrease? Do you think can they take credit for
the vibe that they're putting out there, as Justice Minister
Paul Goldsmith said to.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You, Well, an important point in all of these policies
that Goldsmith cited is that they haven't really taken effect yet.
So they passed their sentencing reforms, but they don't come
into effect until the end of Journe three strikes two
point zero. Even though the legislation was passed at the
end of last year, it doesn't commence until the middle
of June. The anti gang legislation has been in force.
But promise with Christopher Luxen in the announcement where they
(06:36):
beat a their chests and said look how good we're
doing in law or order, he said that the new
tools for police to fight gangs were already quote unquote
unearthing illegal guns and illegal drugs, but the means to
do that was via a prohibition order, which a cork
can hand down to a gang member if they violated
the gang patch three times. No such orders have been given,
(06:58):
So he's saying that something's happened, which clearly hasn't happened.
And as for the cultural reports, yes they have been
they've had their state funding acts, but it's a really
long stretch to say that that one thing could have
led to a twenty seven percent reduction in the number
of victims of violent crime. So when I was interviewing
Goldsmith about this and he was talking about how great
(07:21):
the government was doing, I asked him, don't you think
there are maybe factors independent of the government that might
be contributing to this And he said, well, you know,
obviously there are broader factors, and one very significant factor
is the messaging from the government, as in the vibe
is really important and it's a message that filters through
the entire system. And he said that, you know, acknowledging
(07:43):
judicial independence, and the government can't tell a judge what
sentence to give, it can only set the law, which
the judiciary then interprets in handing down it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Sentence, what are the stats have you seen?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, I mean crime stats are really crime stats are
a real puzzle or right, because there's multiple different stats
and politicians love to cherry pick whatever stats they want
to back up the things that they say. So we've
talked about the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, and
that's probably the most robust survey because it interviews thousands
(08:16):
of New Zealander's age fifteen and over and it accounts
for and in doing that it is able to account
for unreported crime, and that is only about a quarter
of crime is ever actually reported to police. But in
the latest announcement from the government, they're actually looking at
quarterly results from that survey, which isn't meant to be
an annual survey. In the footnotes themselves in the survey,
(08:39):
they talk about the quarterly results having to take them
with a bit of a pinch of salt because it's
harder to standardize the results for the demographics of New
Zealand on a quarterly basis than it is an annual basis.
So the quarterly results that they just announced where they
had such a big reduction. It is very good news, obviously,
but it is also like not as robust as the
annual results. Annual results they were released earlier this year
(09:03):
and it was up to i think the year to
October twenty twenty four, and at that point the number
of adult victims of violent crime was much higher than
the latest quarterly results and has been more or less
the same since the survey started in twenty eighteen. There's been,
(09:24):
you know, there's been a bit of ups and downs,
but it's what they called no statistically significant difference, and
it includes during the whole tenure that Labor was in office.
Then there are other there are several other statistics. There
are victimization reports to police, so if I go and
report a crime to police, that's recorded as a victimization
to police. And National has used those statistics to show
(09:48):
or to claim a rise in violent crime under Labor,
but they're really only looking at one thing, and that
some acts intended to cause injury, and it's true that
those did rise a lot under Labor, But if you
look at court data, which looked that people charged and
people convicted, then those numbers are much more static. So
the main takeaway from this is that there are a
(10:08):
number of ways that we look at crime statistics, and
none of them are particularly definitive. Some are considered more
robust than others, and overall you're generally looking for trends.
The trends in crime data show a general reduction in
crime pre pandemic years heading down to sort of twenty
(10:29):
twenty two, and since then they've been rising, particularly in
including a violent crime, and since maybe the middle of
last year that has kind of appears to have picked.
But then it's very early days looking at that data
given that it's so recent.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Obviously, we mentioned o Worrel in the intro and while
that's obviously still a developing case, it is believed to
be a random attack. At this stage. There's not really
anything that can the government can do to police random attacks,
(11:11):
though is there not directly?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
They can do things in general that can help to
address things like that. And one of the things that
Police Minister Mitchell said when he was talking about the
reduction and violent crime victims was that there's been a
forty percent increase in police on the beat and having
more police on the beat visible on the streets has
been shown to be effective and generally making communities feel
(11:37):
safer and being more of a deterrent towards crime. But
you know, crime is often impulsive. It's often fueled by
substance addictions, by trauma, and given those quite volatile factors,
when it strikes, it's often spontaneous, impulsive, and quite random.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Even There are some other plans in their early stages
at the moment the government wants to work on. One
is expanding citizen arrest powers, which we've talked about before
on this podcast, but I understand that the Ministry of
Justice isn't a huge fan of it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
So this was work that started with consultation with the
Ministry or Advisory Group for victims of retail crime. Retail
crime has been on the rise quite significantly. Part of
that is down to better reporting mechanisms. The system AURA,
which police introduced, has made it much easier to report
retail crime, but there is also a general feeling that
retail crime itself has been increasing. So the government is
(12:33):
trying to crack down on retail crime and the first
thing that they wanted to look at, and they wanted
the Ministry Advisory Group to look at the citizens arrest
So those powers are quite unclear. The Ministry Advisory Group,
which you would expect, comes down or came down really
strongly in favor of empowering citizens of rest even when
a crime hadn't taken place. You know, they wanted to
(12:54):
empower citizens' rest when you had a reasonable belief that
a crime was taking placement. Wasn't really prepared to go
that for obvious reasons. They've instead sort of found in
middle ground where they want to clarify those powers and
broaden them and they hope that that will make a
material difference. Whenever they have proposals that they asked irrelevant
(13:14):
officials to look them over. And the justice officials in
this case were not exactly endorsing the government proposal here.
They said that the proposal won't really have any desire,
in fact, won't really have any impact on public safety,
and came with a bunch of risks, and those included
people making citizens arrests when police wouldn't make an arrest.
And there could be a number of reasons for that,
you know, for example, there's no evidence for police to
(13:36):
be able to pursue a prosecution. They said that there's
a risk of escalating violence. We've already seen this when
a dairy worker in Auckland was killed after he confronted
someone who stole something from the shop and confronted them
one hundred meters from the store and was stabbed and killed.
So that's not to say that the citizens arrest powers
don't need to be clarified. The Justice officials actually said yes,
it would be helpful to clarify them, but they didn't
(13:57):
recommend going as far as the government did and is
doing is they want to be able to for people
to make a citizens arrest at any time of day
and using any reasonable force, and that can include striking
someone or causing them bodily harm if, for example, someone
is resisting arrest. Currently, the citizens arrest provisions is restricted.
It needs to be an offense that carries the punishment
(14:19):
of three years in jail, and for stolen goods, that
needs to be stolen goods worth more than one thousand dollars,
and you know you're not going to grab someone and
see what's in their hands and then grab a calculator
and see if that adds up to a thousand dollars.
So there's definitely a case that those powers do need
to be clarified. The danger or the fear here is
that it will lead to all kinds of vigilanty justice,
which will actually make public safety matters worse rather than better.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Legislative changes introduced in twenty twenty play stay heavy regulatory
burden on these volunteers. While some of these changes have
been positive, others went beyond what is necessary to ensure
public safety. I've heard from club members and range operators
(15:08):
that this regulatory burden is too high it may force
some to consider closure. This bill simplifies the regulatory requirements
for clubs and rangers to reduce the burden on operators
while maintaining safety requirements.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I believe there are ongoing revisions to the gun
safety laws and three D printed guns are one of
the latest talking points here. Can you tell me what's
happening around that?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, the government has agreed with the National Party has
agreed with the Egg Party to rewrite the Arms Act.
The Arms Act is I think forty two years old
and is no longer as well out of date basically,
and it has no provisions for three D printing of
firearms or firearms parts. This is a small problem, but
an increasing problem in New Zealand police have confiscated a
(16:02):
number of three D printed firearms and firearms parts and
charged people with offenses, but they actually want a specific
offense created where it's illegal to possess any blueprints for
firearms parts and firearms themselves to be three D printed.
That is still being consulted on. The government rewrite of
(16:24):
the Arms Act is scheduled for some time this parliamentary term.
There's just been consultation on that over the summer period.
A bill to enact what the government wants is probably
not expected too much later this year and to be
passed sometime next year. But it was interesting because I
was speaking with the minister responsible for that rewright, Nicole McKee.
(16:45):
You know, she said she's really trying to look at
a balance here because some of the three D printed
innovation that she's seen by New Zealand companies is only
happening in New Zealand and it could be a real
boost for economic and small business growth. She talked about
having visited somewhere that was making really lightweight stocks, which
(17:07):
would be of huge interest to the Defense Force, huge
interest to hunters, anyone who carries a lot of that
sort of equipment. You know, their loads could be a
hell of a lot lighter. Obviously, she doesn't want criminals
to be able to get your hands on that, So
how you balance that from religious littive standpoint is a
really difficult question. So we'll wait and see what the
(17:30):
government comes up with it. In the meantime, police will
still go after those three D printed guns and gun parts.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Thanks for joining us, Derek Cool. That's it for this
episode of the Front Page. You can read more about
today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzherld dot co
dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills
and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer. I'm
(17:58):
Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
another look behind the headlines.
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