Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on the Government's quarter 3 plans for law and order

The Police Minister says he's starting to see change when it comes to crime, but there's a long way to go.  

The Government's committed to passing four pieces of law and order legislation in the next quarter.  

It includes allowing police to ban gang patches, confiscate firearms, more efficiency in the courts, and more rehabilitation for on-remand prisoners.  

Minister Mark Mitchell told Mike Hosking that their plans are a combination of new law and changes to how police are policing.  

He says his letter of expectation to them asked for change in how police deal with gang convoys, and getting on top of the boy racer issue. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government have set the stage for their Q three

(00:01):
plan to focus on restoring law and order, public gam
packed ban of course, alongside giving police more power to
get guns out of hands with criminals. Among the changes
on the way. Mark Mitchell is the Police Minister and
he is with us Mark morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey youpling Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
How much of what you're wanting to do is about
passing a new law versus just having a word with
the police to say get on and do this.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's a combination of both. So obviously my leader expectation
was delivered and due to he's immediately in terms of
how the police are policing the gangs, the game convoys,
their tonguies, how we get on top of the boy races.
So those are things operationally can happen immediately. Obviously, a
big part of the public safety program we've got is

(00:43):
around the legislation, and a lot of that legislation as
part as making its way through Parliament, but it'll be
out in this in the third quarter. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I feel that we're starting to see some change. I
mean I've got some stats later on that shows that
the ram raids are down and and that sort of
thing you saw the cars over the weekend. I mean,
you can't argue with that. There's clearly a lot of
work to do, but it's starting clearly to have an impact.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well. Absolutely, And the thing that I've been really pleased
about is there's been a lot of nassas out there
and the narrative has been looking police have lost the
ability to police the gangs and they're too strong. I
think in the last six months, have police has shown
clearly that they are one of the best most professional
police forces we have or there is in the world,
and they have been very, very effective. And yes, definitely,

(01:31):
without a doubt, I'm starting to see change. There's a
long way to go. We're not there yet, and we
just focused and making sure that we continued roly at
our public safety program. Legislation's part of that. But yes,
I agree with you, we are starting to see change.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Have they been hamstrung? Have they been wanting to do
this but under a previous government, previous ideology they were
just held back from it?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah? Absolutely. I mean I've I always said we were
in an opposition that the police are trying to do
their job with one hand tied behind their back. They
hadn't been supported proper by the rest of the justice system,
and those changes are still happening, but you know, they
got frustrated because of that. They're very effective. They identify
the offenders, they'll arrest of them, I charge them, they'll
opposed bail and then we then seeing two hours often

(02:14):
the backup offending. We just got to fixed that.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, uh and then and and that's the problem, which
is to a degree beyond your control. Parcel the laws
be as prescriptive as you want. Do you think the
court and the judges get it and they're going to
do something about it.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I think they're starting to. The system still isn't for me.
As the police minister, I'm starting to see change without
a doubt. At a minister in the government level, I've
certainly been very clear, have been backed up by the
Prime Minister that these youth offenders, these these violent youth
you know, the worst violent youth offenders, retail youth offenders,
they can't put back in the community. We actually have

(02:51):
to get them into a residence and we have to
start investing in them to try and make any good
decisions in their lives. But these, yeah, the residius violent
youth offenders. You know they are often involved in multiple
aggravated broberies or retail crime. And to get the community
immediately safe, to look after our shop keepers who turned
up each day and work hard, we've actually just got

(03:13):
to get them off the straights. And so I rang
a tumrick. You're starting to respond, the system is starting
to respond. We're not there yet, but we're definitely moving
in that direction.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
I'm sure you're too busy to watch the Prime minister's
postcamp press conference yesterday, but yet again he was peopled
with questions around the whole boot camp thing. It's not
called a boot camp. It's called an academy. You called
it academy. It's not a boot camp. That people still
don't want to get it, do they?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
No, they don't. And look, you've got that there's people
out there that just want to shoot it down. And
I'm a huge believer in I've got a lot of
work into this policy. I've been involved in the Limited
Service volunteer program that's been highly successful with young people
seventeen plus who've gone off the rails a bit. Some
of them even have been in jail. So we're sort
of taking pieces of that and we're putting a program

(03:56):
together that we believe that we need to invest in
these young people. Up until now has not been working.
And I think that this program is going to be
very successful and it's going to give them the best opportunity,
in the best chance to start making good decisions in
their lives and not bad ones.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
That's absolutely okay. We'll catch up tomorrow, mate, appreciate it
very much. Make Metell police minister back with the politics win.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
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