During a tour of Hamilton, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins vowed to deliver a ratio of one police officer for every 470 New Zealanders as well as legislation to shut down gang convoys
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins made his promise of 300 new sworn police officers from a fitting location – the nerve centre of Hamilton’s City Safe programme, a network of cameras and safety officers keeping watch over the city centre.
As Hipkins outlined the plans for new police, a bank of CCTV feeds behind him showed the citizens of Hamilton going about their day in the panopticon.
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“There’s an alert now,” one of the staff members said, pointing to his screen. The number plate for a stolen vehicle had just been picked up by the cameras. Police would soon be en route to the parked vehicle to await the return of the driver.
It’s a slick operation with hundreds of camera streams and an eye on prevention. Operations manager Paul Blewman said it had effectively reduced crime in the area and made people feel safer.
But as Hipkins arrived to deliver a law and order policy he’ll be hoping will turn around Labour’s flagging performance in a long series of polls, he took a more traditional approach.
“We know that one of the things that we can do that really helps to tackle crime in our community is to make sure that we have more officers on the beat, and that those police have the tools that they need in order to be able to tackle crime,” he said.
Three hundred new officers would add to 1800 officers added in the past six years, and take New Zealand from a ratio of one cop for every 541 people to one for every 470.
“Extra police on the beat will be good for New Zealand,” he said.
Labour would also investigate legal repercussions to disruptive convoys on public roads.
It’s a policy aimed at tackling gang activity, although Hipkins said it would be up to police discretion as to whether funeral processions and protests would come under this.
When questioned whether 300 police officers would be enough to reduce retail crime, Hipkins said preventative measures like those employed by City Safe were a key part of the solution.
“It will make a difference because it will mean that the police have more people out on the beat who can follow up on all those crimes, but that’s not the only thing that we’re doing,” he said. “We also want to get those young people out of the cycle of crime – I don’t want those young people doing that offending in the first place.”
But while Hipkins claims to want to pursue a path of early intervention, you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the details of this policy announcement.
Alongside the new cops and the disruptive convoy laws, he announced strengthened legal protections against stalking and harassment and a review of reparation systems intended to speed up payments for victims of crime.
New Zealand Police Association president Chris Cahill said the announcement was "strong commitment" and had more specific numbers than other parties' policies so far, but making sure the officers went to the front line was vital.
"It’s got real numbers behind it, no other party has actually committed specific numbers, so we’ll take that," he said. "It’s got to be recognised it's with the backdrop of unprecedented demand on police services, so it’s well and truly needed."
He said the need and public demand were both centred on the front line – public facing or key investigative roles – so would be disappointed if the new officers ended up on special projects or at the Police National Headquarters.
Hipkins said the 300 staff would be sworn, meaning they are badged police officers, but Cahill said that didn't necessarily equate to them being on the front line.
The Prime Minister announced the policy during a whirlwind trip of Hamilton which saw him speak to a meeting of the country’s business chambers, tour KMart’s distribution warehouse and visit an early childhood centre.
Both of Hamilton’s electorates were prime examples of the red wave last time around, when previously National-supporting populaces turned toward Jacinda Ardern.
Gaurav Sharma and Jamie Strange both got into Parliament on the back of that, but now with Sharma long gone and Strange on his way out following an eccentric valedictory speech, those seats are more or less up for grabs.
Myra Williamson and Georgie Dansey are the Labour candidates for Hamilton West and East respectively, and they joined Hipkins on his tour of the River City.
Hipkins started off his day by appearing in front of the whole country’s business community at the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce National Conference.
Under the wharenui-style rafters of The Pā, a recently completed landmark building at the University of Waikato, Hipkins ran the audience through the five economic commitments he’d announced earlier in the week.
He said there was plenty of reason for the business community to be optimistic, and wanted New Zealand to be “the best little trading nation in the world”.
“People want what we have to sell, but they also want to know that it’s sustainable,” he said. “There’s enormous opportunity in our response to climate change.”
He also stressed the importance of co-operating with lucrative new industries like video games and space travel, pointing to Labour’s recently introduced rebate for the digital gaming sector.
“If we are excluded from that, if we are not supporting the gaming sector ... we also risk losing the film and television sector,” he said, given creative professionals often work across the different sectors.
Lastly he promised a diversification of overseas interests, vowing to visit at least two different countries a year seeking closer ties. He’s already made the the promise to visit India within his first 100 days if elected in the hope of a free trade agreement somewhere down the road.
But while he projected a vision of optimism, not all in the crowd shared his sunny view.
One person asked if Hipkins had been visiting SMEs – small and medium enterprises – as their view of future prospects were dimmer.
“You talk a lot about confidence and positive outcomes in the future, and that’s all very high level – because you’re Prime Minister you’ve got to think about the big picture – but if you go talk to small and medium businesses, they haven’t got optimism. They don’t feel the way you are talking.”
Hipkins said the sentiment of small businesses breaks down in an interesting way.
“If you follow the small business surveys ... one of the things I’ve never been quite able to understand is the difference between headline business confidence and individual business confidence,” he said.
Businesses asked if they think things are generally getting worse would often agree, but then be more confident about the future of their own business, Hipkins said.
“There’s often not a relationship between those two things.
“That’s a difficult thing to grapple with. When I speak to SMEs outside the retail space, many of their customers are bigger businesses ... so their confidence is very much connected to the confidence of the bigger players… we have to look at the outcomes we are achieving here as well as the overall sentiment.”
