Police Minister Mark Mitchell says efforts to tackle Auckland CBD crime working

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say crime in Auckland’s CBD is falling and they are “untying” officers’ hands to control the streets again.

Mitchell told Newstalk ZB they were seeing trends heading in the right direction and slowly getting on top of crime in the central city.

“There is still a long way to go but there is no way we can claim victory.”

He said there has been a 58 per cent increase in foot patrols around the city in the past six months.

Coster said the crime situation was beginning to improve in Auckland’s CBD - though they were starting from a long way down, particularly after town centres had been abandoned during Covid.

The crowd at a public meeting with Police Minister Mark Mitchell on Tuesday night. Photo / Melanie Earlie / RNZ

More foot patrols were helping, and more investment was coming from the Government, he said.

“I think we’re gradually seeing an improvement in antisocial behaviour.”

He also said police were making “a bit of traction” on youth crime, but there were a small group of offenders causing a huge amount of harm.

Mitchell said the Government was giving the police new tools to tackle crime across the country.

“We are untying their hands from behind their back, giving them new powers, saying that we are backing them and behind them, getting out there, reasserting yourselves and showing that the police control the streets and now gangs or boy racers.”

However, during a public meeting with Mitchell at Ellen Melville Centre last night, an Auckland business owner said claims of an increase in foot patrols in central Auckland were “bollocks”.

“I can count on one hand the number of police I’ve seen on the beat in the last three years in the central city,” the man said and was met with a round of applause from the crowd.

“It’s not safe and I want to see cops rotating up and down the streets all day.”

Last month, Stats NZ revealed it would abandon its office space in Auckland Central at the end of the year after numerous staff expressed safety concerns about leaving the premises due to an increasing level of “intimidating behaviour” in the surrounding city streets.

The Government department has even gone to the length of hiring a security guard for the 10-storey building on Greys Ave.

Ten of 22 surveyed Auckland hospitality business owners say they have been the victims of crime in the past six months, according to a snap poll by the Restaurant Association.

Of the 22 businesses polled, 15 said they had concerns for the safety and security of their staff members when getting to and from work.