Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor on Mark Mitchell's attempt to explain the retail crime directive

The Police Minister expects the Commissioner to continue to tackle retail crime.

 Police staff have been directed to not further investigate theft below $200, petrol drive-offs below $150, shoplifting under $500, and online fraud below $1000 dollars. 

But Mark Mitchell is promising retailers officers will always turn up when they have the resources.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls explains why Mark Mitchell needed to clear this up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Wall's political editors with us right now.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hey Jason, good afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, so the Prime Minister is not happy about the memo.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, he's No, he's not, he's not, and I can
I can see why. I mean, if you're a government
that has basically hung your hat on getting tough on
crime and then you get see something like this being reported,
obviously you're not going to be pleased. This is what
he said earlier today. They got that wrong. We're a
party of law and order. We expect our police to

(00:27):
tackle crime everywhere, and that's good to see you clarify
that for now. He's talking about the Police Commissioner having
to come out and say that this memo that was
sent around about police not investigating crime below five hundred
dollars was confusing and unhelpful. And he goes on to
say that the memo was wrong, in inappropriate and hours beforehand,
and I think I heard you making this point earlier

(00:48):
in the afternoon. How the Police Minister, Mark Mitchell actually
called into talkback with Kerry to clarify the situation. And
you know you're not calling in talkback if you're happy
with how the situation is going, and of course it's
a terrible look for this government. I mean, what I
think has happened here is that there has always been
potentially some sort of an unwritten rule, because you know

(01:10):
that the police can't be everywhere all the time, all
at once, and there needs to be sort of some
level here. But somebody's made the mistake of actually writing
it down and sending it off and that's the in
turn being leaked to media, and of course it leaves
to all sorts of trouble for the Prime Minister and
his police minister. So I can get why he's not happy,
but I can also get why this sort of thing

(01:31):
has actually happened.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, will you actually at his press conference.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
The Prime Minister's no, unfortunately it was up in Auckland.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, but you've watched the thing, right I did.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Did he at any point say that it is not true?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
No, he didn't say that it wasn't true. He just
kept coming back to the fact that you know, it
was confusing and unhelpful.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
And that you shouldn't so it is definitely happening.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, listen at this the Prime Minister didn't deny that
this was a thing, and he if he wanted to
use that opportunity to say, yes, I've had a briefing,
this is in fact not the case. Because of X
y Z. You wouldn't come out and see that. The
top brass of the police was it was unhelpful for
them to do something if it wasn't true.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So they're angry that somebody wrote down the thing that
they're doing.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Basically, yeah, somebody said the thing that they shouldn't have
said out loud. You know.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, Now, why is Chippy so keen to hold the scrudge? Well, Winnie?
Why is Winnie holding the scrudge against Chippy? What's good?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Interesting? Before we get you call him chippy too. And
I heard you do that before because I said Chippy
when I was on my mid day cross and I
was like, oh, is it a little bit too familiar?
But it just kind of rolled off the tongue. I
think it's because it's the colloquial name that we've developed him. Anyway,
that's a little bit off track track. But yeah, he's
a bit annoyed. I mean, here's what he said about

(02:41):
him this morning.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think, frankly, New Zealanders have had enough of being
held to ransom by Winston Peters and David Seymour. I
think they want to get back to the idea that
the government's there to serve people rather than serve themselves,
which you know, Winston Peter's, frankly, is a master rate.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah. So there's a little bit of beef, a little
bits probably under selling it a little bit. There is
beef between the two of them, which is why I
think Winston came out as strong as he did this
morning saying that he would not be forming or have
any post government conversations with the Labor Party under Chris Hipkins.
So there is a distinction between a Labor Party under
Chris Hipkins and a Labor Party in general. I mean,
you know, you never know what happens afterwards. But it's

(03:16):
an interesting move for Winston because, as you know, it's
not really his sort of a move that he does
ruling things in and out.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, his style is very much to leave every option open,
isn't it, like literally literally after the election.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, and it's I mean, look at the way m
MP has worked in the last or since it's come
into force. I mean, nobody's done it better than Winston.
And because it's because of things like this. People vote
for Winston because they get they get good things out
of it as far as they're concerned. They have so
much leverage. I mean, there's a reason why Winston got
quite a bit more than the Greens out of ar
Dern was because that, you know, everybody knows that the

(03:52):
Greens are going to go with the left leaning parties
at the end of the day, and Winston is you know,
will go whatever way he thinks that he's going to
get the best. But it was quite interesting exactly, and
it was quite interesting when you were having a chat
with Chris Hopkins just before, he was not thinking that
it was a foregone conclusion that he'd actually be working
with Greens and Tibarti.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Marti, Oh, look, there's still plenty of water to flow
under the bridge yet, so.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
There must be a lot of water to flow under
that labor bridge to mean that he's not going to
have to work with both of them.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. Hey, thank you
very much. I really appreciate it. Jason Jason Walls, Political Editor.
And as I say, Mike Mitchell, police Minister, is going
to be with us just after five o'clock.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
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Speaker 3 (04:32):
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