National’s Justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith has accused the Government of ignoring youth crime in New Zealand.  

“Labour’s track record in law and order is weak and tired. During a miserable five years, violent crime has risen by 21 per cent, gang members have increased by 50 per cent, and a new ram-raid every 15 hours represents a staggering 500 per cent increase” Goldsmith said.

“Labour’s Minister of Justice, Kiri Allan, appears content with the strategy of ‘ignore, deny, ignore’ while New Zealanders are terrorised up and down the country every single day.“

Goldsmith said “Allan had the audacity to claim that National’s policy was a recipe for ‘fully fledged nationwide criminal networks’.

If the Minister had turned on a television in the past twelve months she would know the criminal networks she speaks of are absolutely thriving under a Government that is soft on crime and absent for victims.”

Goldsmith said “the Deputy Prime Minister appeared to take the side of criminals over victims, saying that National’s policy “did not work”. I’d remind Mr Robertson that something is clearly not working when you’ve got shop fronts being smashed in by 16-year-olds in stolen vehicles every single night rather than tucked up in bed and going to school every day.

Labour’s soft-on-crime coalition didn’t stop there, with Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson calling the policy “harmful”. Although we don’t agree, we do think that thousands of children growing up in this Government’s shameful emergency housing motels is harmful – something that Minister Davidson is responsible for.

“The Green Party is campaigning to ensure beneficiaries who are on the run with a warrant out for their arrest still receive the benefit. That sums up their approach to law and order.

“These Ministers know that the Government doesn’t have a plan and New Zealand is going backwards. That is why they can only delve into ideological debate, which doesn’t solve the problem. And let’s be clear about the problem – right now, a Kiwi business is ram-raided every 15 hours.

“So far, the Government’s approach has been to wring its hands and do nothing at all. The only thing the Prime Minister has to say about youth justice is about giving 16-year-olds the vote.

“National is the party of law and order and we will not ignore the serious challenges that New Zealand faces.

Justice Minister Kiri Allan responds to National “we take an evidence-based approach”

In Parliament on Tuesday, Justice Minister Kiri Allan said since the Government announced wraparound support in September to young offenders, around half of the most serious repeat offenders that were identified are back in education or training and almost a third have not reoffended.

“Since May in Auckland, 1036 charges have been laid against 142 Young people, in Waikato, 1229 charges have been filed against 205 young people.”

“We have decided to take an evidence-based approach to focus on youth crime. National has consistently decided to take a non-evidence basis, announcing policies that show that 85% of failure with our own ministers and former ministers have resoundingly reprimanded the opposition for announcing rehashed, failed policies.”

Allan said when National was in power, the party “reduced the number of police on the streets, they reduced the number of tools that were available to them, and they closed police stations.”