CSB - Sophie Trigger - Senior Political Reporter Newstalk ZB

Week in politcs. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the rugby field to the rotary shed.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's the Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on gold
Sport in a pretty tumultuous week and the Houses of
Power joining us this morning. Senior political report for Newstorks
their b Safety trigger the morning, Sophie.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Good morning, b K. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Oh very well? Thank you, hikoys, name calling, new police commissioners.
All sorts of things going.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
On, yeah, starting with the hikoy. This week tens of
thousands of people arrived at Parliament, the culmination of a
nine day hikoi down at the country to oppose government policies,
including the Treaty Principles Bill. Now Estimates of the numbers varied,
but by the end of the day police said about

(00:42):
forty two thousand people were at that hekoy on Thursday.
On Tuesday sorry, while the Public Service Association said fifty
five thousand. Was described in the Herald as being three
times the size of the Foreshore and Sea Bed protest
in two thousand and four, and many agreed it was
the largest protest Parliament in living memory. I was watching

(01:02):
it from the Beehive balcony on Tuesday, BK, and it
was honestly difficult to even wrap your head around the
numbers because you just couldn't see where the crowd ended
in any direction you looked. Now, David Seymour went out
to face the HICCOI at one point in the afternoon
he was surrounded by police and he walked out onto
the fore court for about five to ten minutes. And

(01:24):
according to Seymour, this was despite police asking him not
to go out as they felt it might incite people
to behave poorly, but Seymour said it was important for
democracy that he do. But by all accounts, of course,
this was an incredibly peaceful protest and extremely well organized too,
which is very important for safety reasons of course when

(01:44):
you have a crowd size that large. Now. Prime Minister
Chris Luxen was asked later in the day if New
Zealand was unified, and he responded that there's no doubt
the country is going through a challenging time. He said,
we do need to come to and we do need
to make sure we have a great future as a country,
whether you're marty or non marty, and I think we

(02:05):
had innate potential in this great country. Now's job is
to realize that New Zealand First Shane Jones went a
bit further when commenting on the Hickoi, observing the protest
has tapped into a sense of anxiety within Martydom that
their rights, their identity are being imperiled.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
So we've got to.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Work very hard to ensure that we're not doing anything
to invalidate marty identity. So it certainly does sound like
the volume and the message of the protest has given
the government something to think about.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
The absolutely alrighty, we're talking about the police. A new
police commissioner was announced during the week as well.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, that's correct. The new Police Commissioner to replace Andrew
Costa is Richard Chambers. Will be in the top job
for the next five years. He was formerly the Assistant
Commissioner and has been a police officer for nearly thirty
years now. The role of Police Commissioner has become more
political in recent years. The coalition government parties all campaigned

(03:08):
on law and order policies ahead of the election, and
Mark Mitchell in particular was critical of Andrew Costa while
in opposition, particularly his implementation of policing by consent, which
he said he would scrap once in government. Now has
Audrey Young noted in the Herald Nationals criticism of Costa
politicized this role in a new way and has also

(03:30):
put a bit of a spotlight on Richard Chambers and
set some quite high expectations for him. So it will
be interesting to see how things could be different under
his watch, particularly given that this week we've also seen
the new gang laws come into force, so that came
into force at twelve am yesterday. Police are now enforcing

(03:51):
these new powers that they've been given, which of course
includes the ability to ban gang patches in public and
the power to disperse otherings of gang members. Now, some
concern that's been raised by the opposition and also the
Police Association over the past year has been how these
laws can be practically enforced by police, particularly in parts

(04:12):
of the country where there are a lot of gang
members and fewer cops. But Police Minister Mark Mitchell yesterday
said that at about one pm there had already been
three arrests for having a gang insignia in public, and
also Richard Chambers noted yesterday that the first arrest happened
at just three minutes past midnight, so we can certainly

(04:33):
see that it's taking effect well.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I can see being challenged though from the gangs, that's
for sure going through the house at the moment too.
The boot talk about the boot camps as well, which
is controversy there.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, correct. So yesterday the legislation that supports the government's
military style youth academies passed its first reading. Of course,
a flagship government policy. National campaigned on this and the
policy has been led by Children's Minister Karen Chaw from
the Act Party. So this bill creates a young serious
offender category and gives youth courts the power to send

(05:08):
some of these young young offenders to a military style academy.
There's currently a pilot program underway which is voluntary, but
critics of the boot camp ideas, such as the Greens
and Labor, say the government should have waited to evaluate
the success of this pilot before going ahead with the
legislation to make it permanent. We also received in the

(05:29):
news yesterday that one of the ten young men selected
to take part in the pilot has already allegedly reascended,
prompting the Opposition to renew its criticism of the program's
lack of evidence and effectiveness. So, in the statement, yesterday,
Chaw said she was disappointed with the news, but believed
it would be naive to think that none of those

(05:50):
who participated would re offend. There's also been some concerns
raised by opposition parties, the Children's Commissioner, and survivors of
abuse in state care about the government's plans for military
style academies, including powers being granted to staff to use
force against children in some circumstances. So Minister Chaw actually

(06:12):
spoke with my Herald colleague Jamie Ensor and said she
wouldn't take personal responsibility if there are inappropriate actions occurring
within the program. So she said she doesn't control other
people's behavior, but will do what she can to ensure
safeguards against abuse exists. She says her expectations are that
these young people are safe and cared for, but she

(06:34):
cannot take personal responsibility for someone else's behavior, and she
also believes some opponents of the program are jumping to
worst case scenarios. So, indeed, now that this bill is
making its way through the House, we can expect the
debate to continue, and it's certainly something people feel extremely
strongly about.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
And Education Minister Erica A. Stanford got herself in a
little bit of strife in the house. Was it yesterday
she did.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yes, Yes, She withdrew and apologized after a comment made
to Labour's Jan Toinetti. Jan Tinetti claims that Stanford called
her a stupid B word. Yeah, so as I said.

(07:21):
Stanford with drew and apologized the comment and said that
she had also reached out to Toinetti personally to apologize.
There we go.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
So everything that lived happily ever after. Hey, nice to
catch up, Sophie. You have a great weekend.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Fantastic thanks b K.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Sophie trigger joining us. He a senior political reporter for
news talks. He'd be here on the Country Sport Breakfast
on Gold Sports