Sunny Kaushal: Retail Crime Ministerial Advisory Group Chair defends the $500 thousand cost of the group

A belief the cost of propping up retail crime advisors is money well spent – and that's from a key member of the advisory group.  

It's been revealed $500 thousand has been spent on the Retail Ministerial Advisory Group in the 102 days to June 30.

Group Chair Sunny Kaushal told Heather du Plessis-Allan the group's coming in under budget, and money is required for their proposals.  

He says retail crime is costing $2.8 billion, and if laws are to change, they need to produce quality reports.  

Kaushal says the money's coming from the Proceeds of Crime Fund. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's a bit of het on the government's Retail Crime
Advisory Group, you know, the outfit. It's made up of
the retailers who are giving the government ideas on how
to tackle the crime that's going on in the stores.
Turns out the group has existed for one hundred days
and it's cost the taxpayers around five hundred thousand dollars.
Sunny Caulcial is the chair of the group with us.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now morning Sunny, Very good morning, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Now, Sunny, this is a lot of money for one
hundred days, isn't it, Heather.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Actually, we are under budget. You know. The great thing
about our group is that we are funded out of
the Pursuits of Crime fund. That means we are funded
by the money seized from the criminals and gangs, so
we are spending their money. You know. Our group, Ministerial
Advisory Groups of budget for the full year is one
point eight million dollars. So we are we are we

(00:48):
are truly under a budget. You know. Year ending, we
have under spent and saved over three hundred and sixty
one thousand dollars, so we are well under budget.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
To be fair, if you spend every month at the
rate that you're spending. At the moment, you will come
over budget because it will hit it will hit two
million when your budget is one point eight. But let's
have a look at what this money spent on personnel
costs of what three hundred and thirty thousand dollars? What's that?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
So the majority of our costs come from the team
of legal, policy and policy experts. We having gaged and
we need to deliver evidence based and professional advice. If
we have we are going to get the government to
listen to our proposal.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
And I'm really how far the work that we Who
are these people?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
So the people are the the legal team, the the
the policy people.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Who are the policy people?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, so we have to you know, we have to
deliver the proposals which are evidence based, which are independent,
which are international patent.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Here's the thing. We pay people already in various departments
and minister's officers to be these policy people. So policy
people are you paying?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
This is for the ministered advisory group we have. We
have a separate entity, you know, otherwise no need to
set up ad ministerial advisory group. If the existing agencies
and all were able to deliver what we have been
delivering now you know we we are. You have seen
this is the as Ministry has said, the this Ministrial

(02:23):
Advisory Group is the most productive group in New Zealand history.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
You know, you're getting off a bit a bit of
track here. The question was who are these people? Can
you tell? Can you give me a name?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, not the names, you know. I mean, we have
the they manager, we have the policy team you know
who go into those policies. They're experts in their various fields,
like the criminal law specialists. And then we have the
the consultants.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Sonny, I love your ideas and I think your ideas
are good, but they are ideas that have been that
you have been pitching for a long time. I just
feel like this just feels like a money go around,
doesn't it. It's it's people just getting so some easy coin.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
No, Heather, I wouldn't agree on that one. This is
a money well spent. You know, tail crime in New
Zealand is costing two point eight billion dollars. You know,
shop lifting itself is costing New Zealanders one point four
billion dollars annually. Then there's a human cost to retail crime.
These are the costs I'm worried about, you know, if
we have to deliver the quality reports, if we have

(03:23):
to get the law change, which have not been changed
as old as from one hundred and twenty seven years,
we need to come up with quality reports. And hither
I encourage everyone to look up the reports to see
how comprehensive they are. They're all available online.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Sonny, thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Sunny Corcial,
Chair of the Retail Crime Ministerial Advisory Group. It's not
nice to talk about people's pay packets, but I'm going
to do it anyway, Sonny. Sonny has been paid ninety
thousand dollars I think, which is over one hundred days.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Not bad.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Not bad because it's nine hundred dollars a day. So
and if you carry that on, that's three months. Hey,
you carry that on four times, three hundred and sixty
thousand dollars a year. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.