Steve Symon: Do we need a dedicated organised crime minister?

The final report from a ministerial advisory group on organised crime recommends the urgent implementation of it's proposed solutions.

This includes a dedicated organised crime minister, a new strategy, and a charter to hold agencies accountable. 

The report calls organised crime one of the 'most significant threats' to New Zealand. 

Chair of the advisory group, Steve Symon, said to Heather du Plessis-Allen "organised crime is effectively, affecting every New Zealander".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. The final report on how to tackle our
organized crime has landed. It says organized crime is now
New Zealand's greatest national security threat. We need a dedicated
Minister of Organized Crime and implementing anything less than the
recommendations in full will not be enough. Steve Simon is
the chair of the advisory Group. Hi, Steve, Hey, how
do you judge it to be the greatest national security

(00:22):
threat that we face?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
From speaking to senior members of the police and customers
and other agencies, talking to them about the size of
the threat that we have now, and also by looking
at the international experience, whether that's the UK, the Pacific
or Australia and seeing eure it could go and get
particularly worse. So we see it as both a threat

(00:48):
now and potentially getting much worse as a threat for
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Right, I mean I can see it as a health threat,
right if you've got drugs being done. I can see
it as a crime threat if you've got criminals involved.
But how does it come a security three?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Because organized crime is effectively affecting every New Zealander, whether
it's because our wastewater results have doubled in the last year,
so we have the effects of a greater community of
people consuming meth andmphetamine and whether that results in myth
related violence or in myth related car accidents causing fatalities.

(01:30):
Whether it's fraud where one in ten New Zealanders has
been a victim of fraud within the last year and
that number is growing, and so we're seeing the vulnerability
of our community to cyber fraud and the like. Whether
it's emerging threats like migrant exploitation, which means that the
products we buy, the services we use may be contributing

(01:52):
towards migrant exploitation. Whether it's simple things like black market tobacco,
people getting the cigarettes getting through the black market at
a cheaper price, but New Zealander is bearing the social
costs and the health costs that associated with those cigarettes
not having paid revenue on.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
When you go to ministers and you tell them that
this is your view, do they take you seriously? Can
you see that it lands?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes. I've been pleasantly surprised at how much support there
has been at a minister level. It helps that Minister Costello,
who was the person driving this, has a background in
the police and also did a lot of work in
the migrant exploitation space. Obviously, mister Mitchell similarly has been

(02:42):
in the police and so they know from the front
lines the issues we're talking about and live from the
reporting that's been done from their agencies as to how
big the threat is, and so that there has been
a lot of support. We're just hoping that support will
translate into our recommendations being adopted.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Do we really need another minister though? Could we not
leave this with the police minister?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
We could? I guess my point would be, at the moment,
our response organized crime has split over some thirteen different agencies,
and so what we have at the moment is thirteen
different agencies and arguably more being involved in that response.
What we have as a police Minister and a police
commissioner who are dealing with a wide variety of work already,

(03:31):
so whether that's domestic violence, shoplifting, meth related harm, all
of those things falling within the ambit of police. Obviously,
organized crime is a big component of that. But what
we need is someone who can pull together the work
the police are doing, customs are doing, the ia MPI,
all these other agencies, but also tie in the private

(03:54):
world and the communities to be part of one global
well sorry, one complete response to organized crime. We need
that accountability so the public can know who is taking charge,
who is responsible for our for responding to organized crime.
Point to them and be able to say, look, we're
holding your accountable and for them to also hold all

(04:16):
these agencies to account as well.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Steve, Thanks very much for you time appreciated. Steve Simon,
Chair of the Ministerial Advisor Group on Organized Crime.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
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