A 13-year-old girl was beaten at a Rotorua bus stop outside the library. Photo / Supplied
National will give police ‘’permission’' to clean up Rotorua after two attacks on teenage girls - but Labour says it is not possible to “arrest our way out of this’' and believes the causes of crime need to be addressed.
Rotorua MP Todd McClay and Labour rival Ben Sandford spoke out after the two attacks in the CBD in the past two weeks.
ACT Rotorua electorate candidate Marten Rozeboom believed a greater police presence would help reduce crime. Meanwhile, Te Pāti Māori Party candidate Merepeka Raukawa-Tait believed the community must do more than “express horror” and instead take action.
The comments come after a 13-year-old was left bloodied at an Arawa St bus stop after being punched by a stranger on Tuesday last week and a 15-year-old collapsed after being beaten on Monday on Haupapa St.
Police have referred three young people to Youth Aid and say they are maintaining an increased presence in the area where the attacks happened, near the Rotorua Library.
Mayor Tania Tapsell said the council was “determined to turn this around” and an inner city community safety hub would be established in about two months.
McClay told the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend it was “horrifying” and “extremely sad for Rotorua” for violent crime to be happening in the CBD.
He criticised the Government for using Rotorua as a “dumping ground for homelessness” with emergency housing.
McClay said this meant police resources had been “stretched wider” and were ‘‘overburdened’'.
McClay said National would “give permission to our police to clean our town up and back them 100 per cent.”
Parents needed to also “take responsibility” for their youths.
Sandford said the bashings were “terrible” and people should have the right to be “safe and go about their day peacefully”.
There were some “complex factors” that were the “drivers of violence and crime in our community”.
“For instance, we have kids growing up in environments where violence is normalised. We then see the outcomes of this playing out on innocent victims in the community.”
Sandford said this was “unacceptable” and more needed to be done to deal with domestic violence and turn “these situations around”.
He said there were programmes such as Te Aorerekura, a national strategy to eliminate family violence and sexual violence, but more money was needed.
Sandford said it was not possible to “arrest our way out of this” and tackling the causes of crime was important.
“This space is not going to change overnight - we need a long-term, determined focus on it,” he said.
Rozeboom was “appalled” with violence in the CBD.
He believed a “visual approach” with more police presence in the community would help to reduce crime.
Rozeboom said “crime in the country has to be addressed” and platforms such as more security cameras in the CBD would improve crime rates.
Raukawa-Tait said the community must do more than “express horror”.
“We seem to be sitting around, waiting for a miracle to happen and voila - the antisocial behaviour will disappear. That’s not going to happen,” said Raukawa-Tait.
It was time for “immediate” and “swift” action.
Raukawa-Tait said: “Identify the offenders, their families and lay out the consequences in black and white.”
She believed a whānau ora approach towards offenders had “transformative power with struggling families across the motu”.
Raukawa-Tait said she had seen the positive effects of this approach.
“Whānau Ora kaimahi, community and iwi social service providers can absolutely achieve the positive results that we all want to see,” said Raukawa-Tait.
- Additional reporting Joseph Los’e
Michaela Pointon is an NZME reporter based in the Bay of Plenty and was formerly a feature writer.