Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on Treaty Principles Bill hikoi

A mass hikoi has departed Northland and is heading to Parliament. 

As many as 20,000 people are expected to arrive on the grounds early next week. 

Police Minister Mark Mitchell joins to discuss how the police are preparing. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, by what's your sense of this protest? Is
it just nine days worth of wandering down the North
Island or are we in for something bigger and more alarming.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, it's hard to tell, but you know, police have
been working with the organizers now well in advance and
there's a commitment by them that it's going to be
a peaceful hikoy and beauty Better is that people have
got the right to come out and participate in peaceful protest.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
What's the rule around this in terms of their right
to protest versus everybody else's right to get on with
their day and not be held up.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, depending on
the numbers that joined the Hackoy and maybe some disruption
around traffic flying things like that, But fundamentally the police
have been very clear with the Hackoy organizers that if
there are breach to the peace, if there is any
sort of laws that have been broken, if law and body,
members of the public having their rights trampled over, then

(00:55):
you know the police will take each of that.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
What's the sense from the police. Is there a lot
of you know, you in anger in this that could
explode or we don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
No, not at this state of the They're working very
close and got a very good, strong working relationship with
the Hickory organizers and the heck of We organizers are
taking it seriously. They've hired a traffic management company to
help with to manage that they have. As recently as
this morning, I was hearing them saying they committed to
a peaceful protest, and my expectations is that they you know,

(01:28):
it's a big responsibility to bring that many people out
into a public space and they should be focused on
the safety of the protest as the safety of police
officers and the safety of the public.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
How much resource, by way of an issue is there
from the police, and what won't they be doing Because
they're doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
They'll put the necessary resource into it. So there's they've
established obviously a centralized comment controls center monitor it, and
I from what understand, have the ability to be able
to surge additional stuff and if they're.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Required, okay, and when they get to Parliament, does that
potentially become a problem.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I don't think it will be. But you know, of
course the police have done the planning around all contingencies.
But no, I don't think it will be a problem.
I think that they'll arrive at the Parliament, they'll want
to have Obviously there'll be some speeches delivered in some
engagement yet. But look, like I said, the organizers are
fully committed to a peaceful before.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Have you had a word with David Seymour, because of
course you're in charge of this and this is something
that's going to die at the first round anyway. So
it's the weirdest thing in the world, doesn't it. Whether
you agree with this or not, it's dying at round one. Therefore,
the whole thing's a waste of time. Therefore, there's a
lot of energy going into something that's going nowhere.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Have I supposeed to David seymore about that? No, I haven't.
I haven't hear discussion with David. Are you talking about
the treaties principles?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, I mean yeah. The reason they're marching is the
Treaty Principal's Bill. The Treaty Principal's Bill is going off
dated Thursday's going off to the Selectrimitty. He's going to
die from there because you haven't got the support. So
they're marching for no particular reason. They're marching for something
that isn't going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, yes, so it's just'trictly related to the treaties principle. Yes,
you're right, it's not going any further than that sleectuity process. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, I've got your headline over the weekend the number
of youth offenders is dropping. No one knows why is
that true?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I agread that well, I mean, obviously we're very focused
on reducing especially violent recidibus youth defendant and we've already
put some things in place. We've got our Youth Military
Academy which is working very well. Certainly there's the serious
violent cibus defenders are going into youth justice facilities and

(03:36):
they're coming off the streets, so that will help with
some reduction. But look that we're certainly not We know
that there's still a lot more work to do, but
there are some early promising signs that we're moving in
the right direction.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
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