Steve Symon: Ministerial Advisory Group Chair on their plan for tackling organised crime

A panel of experts has a solution to tackling organised crime but won't yet say what it is. 

The Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational, Serious and Organised Crime has put out a new list of recommendations ahead of its final report later this month. 

Among the suggestions are greater accountability across government departments and a new minister whose entire job is working on the problem.  

Group chair Steve Symon told Mike Hosking the overall solution is bold. 

He says they've had a lot of encouragement; the question is whether it will translate into financial support and the political will it needs. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New report from the Advisory Group on organized crime. This
time it's focused on the accountability of our transnational response.
We have sadly a lack of cohesion that is undermining
our ability to tackle this particular issue. The recommendation is
a new government minister solely responsible for transnational crime. Steve Simon,
of course chair of this Ministerial Advisory Group and is
with us. Steve, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good morning here.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I think I'm right in saying it's your number five now,
aren't you? Report number five?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
That's correct?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Out of how many? How many are coming?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is our last monthly report before we have our
final report for September where we recommend the solution to
this problem of organized crime.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
As you sit here this morning and I don't want
a pre final report or report number six, Do you
have a solution? Do you have something that people can
go ah, got it?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, we do.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Good.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It will be bold and will require the government to
be bold. But we have a solution.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Fantastic And are you, from your experience and interactions with
the government so far bullish the possibility of that being
picked up and run with or you're a bit circumspects
still we're bullish.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
We've got a lot of support. We've had a lot
of encouragement from government, from agencies, from the public. It's
just as you know, whether that translates into the financial
support and the political will that it will need.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Okay, well, we'll get you back on the program at
the time. Back to this report. The cohesion or lack
of between who sore you talking about the Board of
the Police, etc.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I take it we've got great work being done by
individual agencies, but each agency is focusing on their particular homework.
What we have a problem with is that siloed approach
is meaning we don't have an overall picture of what
we're doing with organized crime.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
As can't surprise you. Presumably no, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
We knew this from the start. We've got a lot
of experienced people in the committee who know this problem,
and what we're saying is, let's confront that problem, give
it a solution. Take one person who is responsible for
standing up in front of the public and saying, what
are we doing about organized crime? How are we taking
the faith?

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Now? This is interesting because the New Zealand Initiative wrote
a report. In fact, it was a report of a
report they'd done before. We have too many ministers in
this country, and the ministers are sliced up too many ways,
building and construction, housing, et cetera, all separate portfolios. This
in your area, presumably, is the same issue.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
We've got some thirteen ministers who could play a hand
in organized crime. Our point is that spread toothin. We
need someone that the government the public can look to
to say this is the person who's taking the fight
to organize crime, and then a supporter to make sure
those other agencies are doing their job as well as
they can.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So you need a Minister of organized crime, yes, right,
So the held accountable thing, who would it be, I
mean just off that would it be naturally the police minister,
or it could be anybody.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
It could be any minister, our priority strong minister who
is in cabinet as a firm voice, because the task
that they would be taking on will be obviously a
very challenging one and quite confronting one, and so they're
going to have to be quite bold.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
The held accountable part of it, lack of accountability. Is
it that they don't want to be held to account
or is it they can be held to account? They
just want to point the finger at somebody else at
that department over there that's not doing their job.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think it's more a case of the agencies are
doing a good job a lot of there's a lot
of good people working in these agencies doing a lot
of good work, but there's no one standing back and
joining it together. For example, the information sharing report we
did last month where we talked about there isn't fluid
information sharing going across the agencies so that we can
target organized crime. No one's packing that up because it's

(03:49):
important to each individual agency, but no one's standing back
and saying, well, collectively, we need to do this if
we're going to fight organized crime properly.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Okay, do you feel at this particular point of the
cycle and your terms chair of this that you're adding
real value to the conversation, the knowledge and potentially an outcome.
In other words, this has been worth your while.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think it has been worth my while. It's certainly
we're poured our energy into it. I've got a really
great committee that's very passionate about this work, and we're
all at a station in our career where we're doing
this because we want to make a difference. The rhetoric
we're hearing is that we are making a difference. Even now,
we're seeing some response by agencies. We're seeing great support

(04:32):
and the proof will be in the pudding next month.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Good stuff, mate, we'll catch up then. Appreciate it very much.
Steve Simon, chair of the Ministry really Advisory Group for
Organized Crime.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
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