Darroch Ball
Co-leader/National Spokesperson
Sensible Sentencing Trust.
Every now and again there comes an opportunity for an opposition party to completely own a major policy area. This opportunity is presenting itself to the National Party in the law-and-order space – but seems to have been so unexpected that they are flailing around like they don’t even know it’s there.
Right now, the public are fearful of the exponential increase in crime, gang activity, shootings, stabbings, and general violent thuggery on our streets. This increase has been building for some time and is already understood and accepted by the majority of the public as being a noticeable fact – not only because of the huge increase in the reporting of these incidents, but because they can see it for themselves outside their windows.
The one thing the public don’t need from an opposition party is a running commentary on the increase in crime and every step the government is doing wrong – that’s the stuff they already know. What they need is a clear and contrasting alternative plan, policies, and solutions. Unfortunately, the only things we are hearing from National at the moment are how bad the gangs are, how bad the police numbers are, and how the government is perpetually ‘soft on crime’. Which, by the way, are all true, but due to the massive vacuum of alternative policies the public has nothing to latch onto.
One of the main (only) policy pushes for National to ‘come down hard on gangs’ was to introduce Firearm Prohibition Orders. For some strange reason, this was being promoted as if it was going to solve the whole problem of gangs on our streets (by introducing another law for gangs to not follow). So when Labour did the smart thing and adopted the policy, the only reaction from National was “well, it should be brought in quicker”. That’s it.
Now there is policy-silence in the law-and-order space and it’s deafening. The only things we are hearing from National are complaints about the gang members ‘being hugged’, ‘wokester’ police commissioners, police numbers not being what they should be, Corrections not correcting, and some ambiguous promise to be ‘tough on crime’.
The real problem with the ‘blankity, blank, blank alternative policy void’ is that it starts getting filled up with memories of what National did when they were in government last time – and it wasn’t so flash.
Sitting in a public meeting a few weeks back in Napier hosted by National, we were hearing from the public about their concerns around gang activity and shootings. The main complaint was the lack of police numbers and the reduction of the local station size and removal of the cells. The room was incredulous and frothing at the mouth about why this happened and the obvious outcome of it all. What the room didn’t remember, and clearly neither did the National MP hosting, was that it was National who reduced the station size and capacity in 2017.
In fact, National fully closed or reduced station capacity in no fewer than twenty-seven police stations across the country when in office – Napier being one of them.
What’s worse is that for all the complaining about the government and their lack of delivery of promised police numbers (again, albeit true), in the final five years of National the total number in the police force actually dropped while the population ballooned by over 350,000 – and all of this when the gang numbers were growing. Add to this National’s election promise was to increase the police force by just 1,000 – which has already been surpassed by the current government even when they have now ridiculously paused recruitment.
The point is National have a real opportunity to own the law-and-order space by providing the public with a sense of a real alternative to the current mess. That doesn’t just mean opposing what the current government are clearly failing at.
The constant stream of press releases from National giving daily commentary on how the gang numbers are increasing and their violence is spilling out onto the streets doesn’t help – everyone already knows that stuff.
What they want to know is what any alternative government will do that is significantly and demonstrably different – and an improvement on what they did last time.
Firearm Prohibition Orders, Strike Force Raptor, and ‘not doing what Labour are doing’ isn’t filling the void. If National are just relying on ‘we are better than the other lot’ then they are going to waste a prime opportunity to get some real changes made in our justice system when the pendulum finally swings back.
Being threatened by gang members proves a point but that’s about it.
The current government is demonstrably failing at keeping our streets safe and New Zealand deserves better. National have an opportunity to deliver it.
If National want some strong law and order policies that will make a real difference, they should feel free to give Sensible Sentencing Trust a call – we have plenty of ‘tough on crime’ policy and want a party to take them into government.
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