Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on Northland iwi calling from stronger police crackdown on meth use

The leader of the country's largest iwi is calling for the police to crackdown on drug dealers and methamphetamine use in Northland.

Ngāpuhi leader, Mane Tahere says he saw a group of youngsters smoking a meth pipe in daylight on the main street of Kaikohe - just down the road from the police station.

He's met with Police Minister Mark Mitchell - asking authorities to use tactics similar to the drug raids carried out in Opotiki last year.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell talks to Kerre Woodham about the issue. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Mornings podcast from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd be the leader of the country's largest EWE is
calling for the police to crack down on drug dealers
and methamphetamine news in Northland, Napuhi leader Money Tahiri says
he saw a group of youngsters smoking a meth pipe
and broad daylight on the main street of Kokohe just
down the road from the police station. He's met with
Police Minister Mark Mitchell asking authorities to use tactics similar

(00:34):
to the drug raids carried out in the Portoquy last year.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell joins me, now a very good
morning to you.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Good morning Cirie.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Now, obviously you can't direct the police to go where
you wish them to go. But is this something that
police are on board with?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah? Absolutely, And look first, so I just want to
I want to acknowledge Money because he was down here
last week from meeting yep. I was very clear with
him in the meeting that police cannot do this by themselves.
It's got to be a whole of community respons and
that EWE and Hupu've got incredibly important role to play
around leadership and he has as a young leader that's

(01:12):
taken over as the year of Napui. He has stepped
forward without a doubt. And so I do want to
acknowledge that because you please can't do it by themselves.
We all want to get in, we all want to
deal with these problems and we do it together, and
the leaders have to come together and work in a
unified way.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
There's so much that needs happening now that it's so
entrenched within the community, now that we're talking about multi
generations of drug use, and I've even seen it in
the last nine years. I've seen just how much more
of a hold it's got in the region. The community
is trying, but without meaningful employment. Isn't that a really

(01:51):
big problem one of the reasons why young people do
turn to the drugs.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yes, so a lot of those social issues, and I
agree with you completely is that we're probably three, maybe
four generations into this issue now and they are really complex.
But we have to be number one, we all have
to be motivated we are in terms of identifying what
the end generational issues are and then start to work
on them. It's not easy. It is hard. Obviously, we've

(02:18):
got the social Investment Agency that's been stood up at
central government level so that we can get a lot
more coordinated across government social service providers and get really
targeted and focused on what's working and invest in that
and don't invest in the stuff that's not working, and
get into the families that we know are suffering through
this intergenerational you know, whether it's be gang membership or

(02:42):
you know, not having anyone employed in the family for
two or three generations and trying to change that. And
it can be done, but it is hard. But it
does mean all of us working together.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
It does. But we've been saying that now for about
thirty years and just yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
But I've never seen it, even Cairie. I go back
to when I was policing over on the on the
East Coast Engagement, which is an absolutely starting in beautiful
part of the country, but you could put a megaphone
over the social issues that we had to deal with.
And what I saw constantly was, with all the best
intentions of the world, you had NGOs and social and

(03:19):
community groups that were trying to do things but basically
went delivering results. Or you had the government that came
in and touched the family for three months or six
months with a program and then disappeared again, or you
had families that were dealing with multiple government agencies and
became fatigued around that. So we've got to get really organized,
we've got to get really focused on what works and
what doesn't. We got to get as Money has done,

(03:42):
has said, look, we're all in this together, and that's
how we start to affect change.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Grant McCullum rung and after I'd done my opener and
he you know, I said, I imagine that Money Tahde
really took a risk, you know, by he must know
that he's going to get some pushback on this. And
Grant said, no, from what he hears, the elders in
Northland are actually right behind what Money is doing and saying, yeah,
bringing the leaves crack down.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, there's just some top There's looks some very very
strong leaders up there, without a doubt. I mean, work
very closely with Pitt Tippany from Nadi Hinty exactly the same.
They're unafraid to step forward and actually and deal with
the actual issues in front of us, instead of bearing
your head in the sand and pretending they're not There is.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
This generation of young leaders then, and we we've also
got that very sound mayor in the Far North as well,
who's young from the region. Yeah, Moko, he knows his stuff.
Is this going to be the change? Do you think
after years and years of talking you've got the young people? No?

Speaker 3 (04:48):
I do, I feel absolutely me personally, I do feel
that there is a change. I feel that the conversations
are change and I feel like we're getting a lot
more aligned and I'm excited about what we can do.
We know we've got some big mountains to climb, but
we'll climbing together.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah. It's really interesting, isn't it, Just in light of
Mother Pool with her comments about police, and then you've
got somebody who is on who's on the ground, who
knows the problems, who's living with them day by day,
and he sees the police as the solution, not the enemy.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Which you know, that is very powerful messaging and it's
the right messaging. And I look at the work that
the police have done down at a Podique, which has
been quite simply outstanding, and that was in support of
the mayor and the local e we down there, Dave Moore,
who does an outstanding job but needed support and he's
had that support and in the latest wastewater tests is

(05:41):
around myth a Podik who is probably one of the
only places in the country where myth has gone down,
and that is off the back of an outstanding police
operation where they took down the entire Barbarian mungel mob
getting there that was responsible for obviously peddling the misery
and the myth in that community. But you know, but
I'd like to see there we swing and do exactly

(06:01):
what napuu' have done and what money has done, and
swinging behind the mayor, swinging behind the local police um
and together united they are much stronger than divided.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Nice to talk. Thank you very much for your time.
That is Police Minister Mark Mitchell. News Talk said B.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
News Talk Said B from nine am weekdays, or follow
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