Election 2023: Commitments to increasing front-line police
As the economic, civic and cultural heart of Auckland, it's essential that the city centre continues to recover and be known as a vibrant and safe international city.
With the election imminent, we asked party leaders for their position on supporting the city centre's ongoing recovery and growth.
NB: All of the responses below are as received.
Question Three: What is your commitment to increasing front-line police to reflect the number of people here and creating a strong physical presence in the city centre? Do you support a downtown police station?
ACT:
ACT is committed to maintaining a constant population ratio for the number of frontline police officers, not just more for Wellington HQ. While the location of police stations in Auckland is an operational matter for the police we do support a greater police presence in the city centre. ACT would also give the police a stronger presence by allowing them to issue instant practical penalties for shoplifting and abolish the prison reduction target so police can arrest criminals if they consider it appropriate without needing to worry about the “necessity of arrests”.
Green Party:
Green MP for Auckland Central, Chlöe Swarbrick, has worked with Police, Ministers, Māori Wardens and CPNZ to see the introduction of community hubs to improve safety in the city centre, which she will continue to build upon and expand. We’ve heard from the Police that the resources to rebuild the downtown station is significant, and are aware that their Fort St beat Station has enabled foot patrols to increase by more than 240% this year.
We are focused on evidence-based solutions to reduce crime, which means A Home for Everyone and an Income Guarantee, and expanding wrap around support such as the groundbreaking innovation of Te Matawai, the new Greys Ave Kāinga Ora build. We also support the call of Auckland City Mission and the Helen Clark Foundation for an overdose prevention centre.
Labour:
Having engaged with various businesses and stakeholders, it’s clear that to keep the heartbeat of Auckland’s CBD alive and thriving, locals and businesses need and deserve to feel safe. Police have an important role to play in preventing and responding to crime, but there is more we can do to support them in addressing some of the anti-social behaviour that makes central Auckland feel unsafe. Labour has committed to delivering 300 more Police officers if re-elected. We estimate that the addition of 300 additional Police officers over four years will ensure there’s at least one officer for every 470 New Zealanders, the best ratio in modern history. It will mean 2,100 additional officers since Labour came to office in 2017 - the largest growth in constabulary numbers in Police’s history.
We will free up Police time by enabling mental health officers to respond to mental health call outs through expanding the co-response model, and continue to ensure that Police have the resources to do their job and stay safe. We will continue to provide support to retailers to protect their properties, through the Retail Crime Prevention Programme, and we will pass legislation to establish a new offence for ram raiding, with a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.
The Labour Government, alongside Local Government, recently announced a range of new measures to tackle low-level crime and anti-social behaviour in the Auckland CBD to complement Police scaling up their presence in the area.
In addition to retaining the highly successful safety hub at Queens Wharf established by Heart of the City for the Women’s FIFA World Cup, we’re establishing three additional hubs at High Street, Queen Street and Karangahape Road. Working together with volunteer wardens and Community Patrols New Zealand, the four new safety hubs will be developed as a base for community patrols and Māori and ethnic wardens, allowing a more effective presence in the city centre of safety personnel.
The hubs will be open to the public – they will be equipped to respond quickly to minor incidents, provide assistance, and to help connect individuals with emergency services. Police will always be the first responders to crime, but these wardens and Community Patrollers are able to deal with lower-level anti-social behaviour, which will free up Police time to deal with more serious crime.
In addition, Police have significantly increased the number of foot patrols by 243 per cent in Auckland’s city centre over the past year and established a new base to assist with their increased foot patrols.
National:
We are yet to release our full law and order policy.
We want to see a return to a back-to-basics policing model with a focus on highly visibly beat and patrol officers building relationships with local shop owners and retailers, increased contact and interaction with the public and deterring anti-social behaviour and street violence. The public have a sense of security when there is a regular police presence on the streets.
In addition, we are committed to giving police more tools to tackle crime – by taking actions like banning gang patches in public and allowing police to break up gang activity.
New Zealand First:
New Zealand First not only has a commitment but is the only party with a proven record of having dramatically increased police frontline numbers to drive up the ratio of frontline police per thousand citizens. Out last performance on police numbers saw 2338 extra frontline police trained in just over three years. Many should have been positioned in the CBD and a downtown police station is a no-brainer - as is the need for a frequent police presence on CBD streets. The threats to personal safety in the CBD have got to stop as a matter of extreme urgency.
