Another public meeting on crime, another call for more visible police and more help with young offenders. Mark Jennings listened in and asked around.
Auckland’s K Rd on a Saturday night is a colourful, bordering on chaotic, place. Diners dash from Ubers stopped in congested traffic to a multitude of restaurants. Music blares out from bars, muscular bouncers guard club doors and shadowy figures lurk.
The street has become the vibrant heart of the Auckland Central electorate – more so than its well-known neighbours, Ponsonby Rd and Queen St.
Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick has a new, street level office on the Western side of the road. Last Saturday night, lit up with iridescent green lighting, it stood out in an area where competition for attention is strong. Young people with clipboards stood at the door. Swarbrick’s campaign launch was by invitation. It had a cool, dance party vibe.
Two nights later and 100m away, a very different political gathering took place. It was grim, depressing, and uninviting.
Mahesh Muralidhar, the candidate National hopes will wrest Auckland Central back from Swarbrick, was hosting a “law and order” meeting in the Pitt St. Methodist church.
The comparison with the launch party is unfair, their purposes being very different. But the contrast was hard to shift. National’s heavy hitters Mark Mitchell and Paul Goldsmith combatted the cold of the cavernous space with their blue windbreaker jackets. Current and past party presidents, Sylvia Wood and Peter Goodfellow wore thick overcoats and there was no discernible heating in the church on this rainy night.
Muralidhar opened the meeting with results of a survey he and National conducted in the electorate. The blue team visited 123 businesses on Queen St, Ponsonby Rd and Karangahape Road.
According to the survey, 75 percent were deeply concerned about street crime and were struggling to retain staff because of it; 60 percent said crime had significantly increased in the last year.
Ninety percent felt the police were not interested in doing anything about it.
Muralidhar then asked a woman called Kate to stand and speak.
“I live and work in K Rd. I am a privileged person, a middle-aged, middle-class woman. I see what goes on in the day and I see what has happened in the last five years.
“Drug dealers work from the same spot day after day. I have seen kids, probably under the age of 12, buying drugs."
When I speak to Kate later and ask her what sort of drugs, she tells me “mainly P but they even go to Bunnings and get cannisters for the glue sniffers who can’t afford better stuff.”
Kate tells the audience about a confrontation with a drug dealer at her apartment building. “He accosted me in the lobby, yelling at me that there was no point calling the police because there are none. He said organised crime rules this street.”
Gangs, she said, “had paraded down K Rd in July with a yellow Lamborghini leading the way.”
For Mark Mitchell the mention of gangs is like putting a light in front of a moth. Mitchell is odds-on to be police minister in any National-led government.
“Are the gangs running the place? Without a doubt,” he says.
“There are two things that act as a deterrence to crime – the likelihood of getting caught and the consequences of getting caught. Well, the likelihood of getting caught is very low and if you do there is very little consequence.
“The gangs are completely out of control. We [National] are going to draw a big line in the sand.”
Mitchell evoked his own 14-year policing career as a dog handler and armed offenders’ squad member. “When I was in the dog section in Gisborne there were times when I was called over to Opotiki [scene of recent gang trouble] to deal with the gangs. Me and another dog handler….and when we arrived gang members went down their holes again. Why? Because they knew we were serious.”
An audience member called out “Where will you put them?” Mitchell responded, “There's plenty of room in prison.”
Another person interjected “I don’t know whether you can carry this through.”
Mitchell seemed in little doubt. “We need the police to roll over the top of them. We still have a world class police force, but it has very weak leadership and is operating with one hand tied behind its back.”
Paul Goldsmith, perhaps anticipating counter arguments more than he needed to, weighed in, “It is not about whipping up fear. It is what people see.” Asked what he would do as a future justice minister, Goldsmith said he would immediately restore the three strikes policy and change the Sentencing Act “to restrict the ability of judges to massively reduce sentences.”
A woman called Helen took the microphone and asked what National was going to do about the homeless people she had encountered on her way to the meeting.
Mitchell responded saying he had been shocked to find three homeless people on the street close to the church. Sensing he had made a naive comment he admitted he didn’t spend much time in town and was more familiar with his Hibiscus coast electorate.
Then a strange turn. A man with a hat pulled firmly down on his head stood up theatrically announcing “I’m famous, I’m famous, I’m Simon Anderson” and turned himself 360 degrees several times to address those in front of him and those behind.
Anderson said he had filmed a man “beating the pulp out a woman” at the Posie Parker Protest in Albert Park and the footage had been used by BBC and Reuters but not shown on NZ television (Newsroom looked at Anderson’s You Tube channel and saw footage of skirmishes at the protest but wasn’t able to find vision of anyone being badly beaten). Anderson said the name and address of the perpetrator had been provided to the police, but no action had been taken.
Mitchell stepped up for another swing at police leadership. “There should’ve been some more positive action taken to stop people being assaulted. I don’t have confidence in the current commissioner even though I think he is a man of integrity. It’s policing by consent.”
For all Mitchell’s tough talking, an air of scepticism persisted.
“Have you got the money to clean this up,” shouted one man. “What’s your plan for the first six months?”
The hint of a challenge suits Mitchell’s slightly pugnacious style. “Right, first 100 days – 3 strikes are coming back. We will have non-consorting orders to break up the gangs. Gang patches? They’re gone. We will have more police, 450 to 1." he said, meaning one cop for every 450 people, down from between 480 and 500.
Then, the most popular promise of the night. “I want to see beat cops back out on the street.”
Mitchell’s push for a more visible police presence was echoed by a security contractor who said he managed 15 security guards working on K Rd. “We need beat cops not 5 or 6 cops driving down K Rd in a van. So many shop owners feel they must look after themselves. In one year, 19 security guards have been assaulted. We need help on K Rd.”
Last Saturday night, the night of Chloe’s party, K Rd didn’t feel like the crime capital of the country but after the law-and-order meeting Newsroom carried out a random check. We chose the dairy directly across the road from Swarbrick’s headquarters. “Is crime on K Rd bad?” I asked the owners. “Maybe not as bad as you’ve heard, but yes, it is sometimes” they told me.
“Last Friday a guy tried to hit me. Repetitive shoplifting and intimidation are the main things.”
The couple said the police do come into the shop on occasions and ask if they are all right, but things had got worse in the last year.
“Truant school kids are always trying to steal stuff and they are not scared of the consequences. They tell us that if we do anything to them, we will be breaking the law. Even when these kids are picked up, they can be back the same afternoon and that is quite intimidating. We work so hard, and they just take stuff for free.”
Had any politicians been to see them? “Yes, the National guy, Mahesh, he came personally, and his staff have come in couple of times to check that things are okay.”
What about Chloe now that she is across the road? “No, we have never seen her. That is her new office across over there but she used to have one a short distance away near the corner of Symonds St, but she never came. We never see her.”
