Minister for Police, Corrections, Emergency Management and Recovery, Ethnic Communities, and Sports and Recreation joins us to explain how he juggles so many hats.
The Police Minister admits it’s concerning that a “rotten apple” was once in contention to become the country’s top cop.
Former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming last week pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing objectionable material.
Mark Mitchell hopes the public still has trustin our police force, which he said is “world-class”.
“The size of the organisation that we have, there’s always gonna be the odd rotten apple in the barrel.
“Our police officers are out there every day with tens of thousands of positive actions, protecting and supporting their communities that they serve.
“In the past week, I’ve been to two police award ceremonies and probably 75% of the awards that I see handed out are to police officers who have put themselves in danger to save the lives of members of the public.
“When you see bad behaviour from a police officer, no one feels it more deeply than those thousands of sworn or non-sworn staff that are out there actually holding the values and ideals of our New Zealand Police,” he said.
Mitchell was asked by The Front Page whether it was concerning one of those “rotten apples” was once in contention for the top police job.
“Yeah, of course, that’s a genuine concern, and I acknowledge that. All I’d say is that as the incoming Police Minister, there were quite a few issues that I had to deal with. And one of them was this case,” he said.
He couldn’t comment further as McSkimming has not been sentenced yet.
Destiny Church’s Brian Tamaki and followers protest against ‘foreign’ religions in Auckland. Photo / Corey Fleming
In June, Mitchell called out Destiny Church after a march in Auckland targeted minority communities, claiming “the spread of non-Christian religions is now out of control” in New Zealand.
“Behaviour that incites discrimination or violence is damaging and reductive. I condemn the vile rhetoric and behaviour of the Destiny Church and its associates. The behaviour I saw was not Kiwi, nor Christian,” he said in a social media post at the time.
Mitchell continues to condemn this rhetoric in his capacity as Minister of Ethnic Communities.
“They have a right to get out there and the freedom to protest like everyone does. But that turned into really what everyone considered was overt violence.
“When you start ripping flags and specifically targeting different communities, that scares people. That is actually frightening.
“So they should actually reflect on the way that they are carrying out those protests. That applies to any group in New Zealand,” he said.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
