Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on new Ministerial Advisory Group on retail crime

Retailers are hopeful, but wary, of the government's latest move to tackle retail crime. 

It's announced a Ministerial Advisory Group for the victims of the continuing problem. 

The group will speak with victims, workers and business owners over the next two years - before putting forward proposals to address offending.

Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young told Ryan Bridge it's a positive move - but the solutions are pretty clear. 

Young says that includes more visible police presence on the streets and quick action to apprehend offenders. 

She says there is worry among retailers this will become a "talk-fest." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ministerial Advisory Group will be set up to engage with
victims of retail crime. The group will advise the government
on how to reduce offending. This effects ninety two percent
of all retailers. Can you believe it two point six
billion dollars a year? It costs us. Carolyn Young from
retail in z is with me now, Carolyn, good to
have you on the program this morning. Have you, first
of all, got any out of the box ideas that

(00:21):
we should be trying that this this group should be looking.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
At moderna Ryan Well, I don't know, I it's out
of the box, but effectively looking at you know, some
of the work that we're already doing in terms of
the space, and the most obvious thing is obviously wanting
to have increasing police numbers because you know, the having
a police presence on the streets by always deters offending.

(00:48):
So you know, that's a no brain or something to do.
Sometimes the simple things are the most effective, and that's
a really effective toll. And then as we move forward
the use of technology, and there's lots of different ways
in which you can use technology to help combat offenders,
keeping stores safe for staff and customers, so it can
be anything from body cameras to facial recognition to license

(01:12):
plate recognition. There's a whole raft of other things as well,
and the use of technology and training for staff is
also really important.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
What about the more aggressive ones, Carolyn, And I know
that some it's more dairy owners, some dairy owners who
want to go down this track, but allowing them to
have you know, tasers or arm themselves and then be
immune from prosecution should anything go wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, look, I think that or certainly the police Minister
is already looking at the role of security guards and
I know yesterday there was a talk of extending that
to retail workers on the sense a little bit around
what might that look like and does that then encourage
people that are going to offend to escalate the situation

(01:56):
in advance so they're prepared for something like that and
they bring other tools that could end in more more
violence in stall. See here to be really careful because
we haven't really as a country or a nation, gone
through a situation where we fight fire with fire, because
it's not doesn't always work out that well.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
The fire is all coming one way at the moment, isn't.
I mean, that's that's the same it is.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
All coming one way here, and I think that, you know,
there might be some tools that might be appropriate, but
things like guns and swords and things like that, I
don't really think is a country want to head down
that pathway. But you know, I guess the Advisory Group
will look into that and we'll be doing our own
research around that space to see what our members are
telling us that they feel that they need.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
The opposition says that this is a talk fest. Do
you know is there a rest? This is just going
to go round in circles and actually we'll be here
again in two years.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
And there is a risk of that. But we are
leading a bunch of that's looking at legislative change and
how that can be a toll and a mechanism to
help retailers. We're also obviously advocating on the use of
technology to protect staff and stores. And if you can
protect staff and stores, it reduces the needs for people
to be having things like tases and be defending themselves.

(03:11):
I certainly think that if you are having to defend
yourself against criminals, that you don't want to be charged
with that. But it's really thinking about do we want
to encourage that is that the right pathway forward. So
there's certainly lots of we're working with the Police Minister,
the Justice Minister, the work postulations, We're working with the

(03:32):
Police Commissioner as well, and we've got a number of
working groups who are actually doing this and stuff, so
we can creede into this other group as well well.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Hopefully between all of these groups, something will happen, something
will change. Carolyn, thank you very much for your time
this morning, Carolyn Young from Retail end Z. For more
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