Claire Trevett: National’s law and order push and why PM Christopher Luxon got grumpy about the frickin’ targets

THREE KEY FACTS

• The government passed its anti-gang legislation this week banning gang patches in public places from November 21, and giving police more powers to stop gang members gathering. It also makes gang membership an aggravating factor in sentencing.
• Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced new legislation to cap the sentencing discounts judges can apply at 40% and limit repeat discounts.
• The government released its first quarterly report on progress towards its public service targets in law and order, health, education.

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

OPINION

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s startling declaration that “it’s not about the frickin’ targets” book-ended a week which was very much about the frickin’ targets.

Luxon’s comment on Thursday was in response to skepticism from a reporter about the timing of a clean-up of the police list of gang members and associates.

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That clean-up had seen hundreds of names removed as police double-checked whether those on it were indeed still linked to gangs or were even still alive.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell denied it was an exercise in massaging the numbers to make the government look good - he said the government had not asked police to do its stock-take and nor had he been boasting that gang members had dropped under National.

He has, rightly, calculated there was little point given it was well known the list was flawed (although it had not stopped him using the list to highlight the former Labour government’s failings when in Opposition).

The list is a bit like Hotel California – someone could check out any time they liked, but they could never leave it.

That was partly because gangs don’t exactly send courtesy updates to police when somebody joins or leaves.

Luxon was pointing out that what was important was ensuring the list was as accurate as possible to get a better read on the impact the government’s policies and police were having on gang numbers.

Illustration / Rod Emmerson

However, it was - as the reporter had noted - also very convenient timing for a government which set law and order as one of the metrics by which it was to be judged – and put its war on gangs at the very centre of it.

It happened during a week in which the government had decided there was a need to focus on law and order.

Such theme weeks mean the government makes lot of noise about one of its key areas, having hoarded up various announcements and bits of data to launch on the public in one big flurry.

It has the effect of making the government look busy and effective in that area: to convince the public it is doing exactly what they promised they would.

The reason law and order won for this week was clear after Luxon unveiled the first update on progress toward his longer-term targets across health, education, law and order and so on.

Only two had red lights next to them and one was the target to reduce violent crime – the specific target being 20,000 fewer victims.

The chosen measure for that is the Crime and Victims’ Survey, which showed 30,000 more victims in its latest report. Not a great start.

However, that survey has a big lag of up to two years. That is a double-edged sword.

It means a big chunk of the bad figures can still be blamed on the former government (as Mitchell promptly did, before saying it showed the scale of the challenge ahead).

However, it does not allow for quick gratification when it comes to showing progress toward a target.

That is not helpful for National. Law and order is a measure it has asked people to judge it by.

Cue a cast of thousands trotting onto the stage over the week to show the government had it in hand.

We had the PM himself going out with the police in the dead of night, ministers Paul Goldsmith and Mark Mitchell popping up for daily announcements of further crack-downs, highlighting what more focus and police on the beat had done in the Auckland CBD and celebrating police wrapping up major Comancheros operations.

At the end of the week, there were even some ghost police who do not yet exist taking part. They came in the police announcement of where the 500 new police the government has promised before the end of 2025 would be posted.

The villains in this script were, of course, the gangs. They were served up lashings of gang-busting rhetoric, laws banning them from talking to each other and wearing patches, and last-minute amendments to those laws to ensure they couldn’t even hide in their cars.

Goldsmith was the star of the show and kicked the week off with relish, announcing legislation to restrict the mercy judges could show by discounting sentences.

Law and order week coincided with Te Wiki o te reo Māori (Māori Language Week) so on Monday he delivered his whakatauki (proverb/ saying) “Kia mate ururoa - fight like a shark.”

The full saying is “Kia mate ururoa, kei mate wheke” - fight like a shark, don’t surrender like the octopus.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. Photo / Ben Dickens

He proceeded to fight his way through the week – sometimes like the shark (at least on his social media clips), and sometimes a bit more like the octopus.

The octopus bits came with the sloppy late addition of amendments to the anti-gangs legislation.

The first was to ban patches even in the homes of gang members who repeatedly breached the ban in public places – and allow police to search those homes.

In that instance, it seems it was likely Mitchell who fought like the shark after Goldsmith decided to leave it out, before mysteriously backtracking and putting it back in. All part of the “iterative process.”

Mitchell clearly won that one. The second was a very late amendment to clarify that vehicles would also be covered by the patch ban (even hovercrafts). That too was a Mitchell intervention after police raised concerns about whether patches worn or displayed in private cars would be covered.

The late amendments were not a great look although Goldsmith didn’t seem to care, accurately assessing not many people would be weeping into their teacups over the gang members facing a police snoop for illicit insignia.

Goldsmith did have the heart to give the gang members some advice on how to avoid such a scenario: “Just don’t get caught three times within five years”.

It is still too early to assess the effectiveness of National’s interventions through data – for example, measures passed this week giving police more powers to contend with gangs won’t kick in until November.

So law and order week was more about selling the government’s intentions and managing public perception.

It worked a treat. There was very little attention paid to the other target areas in that quarterly update – or even the law and order ones.

There are some targets within the overall target that could prove tricky: the first being the pledge for 500 more police within the two years promised by the NZ First coalition government.

The police (and Mitchell) had warned that might be difficult and so it has proven with almost one year of that year up and attrition making progress non-existent.

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Polls out this week show crime is one of the most important issues for voters. However, they also illustrate that it is not difficult for National to assure people it can deal with it.

It’s an area it has traditionally had a strong lead over Labour in people’s perceptions. In the latest Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll, 40% said National was best at handling public safety – only 19% went for Labour.

So the government will end law and order week quite content with their performance. Luxon will be especially pleased, not least because he didn’t get asked about the Treaty Principles Bill once.

The only minister who might have found the week uncomfortable was Transport Minister Simeon Brown, who thinks every week should be Potholes Week.

However, where there’s a will there’s a way so Brown managed to shoehorn himself into the action as well.

He unveiled Strike Force Pothole Patrol: a fleet of vans tasked with the job of scanning roads and looking into the very souls of potholes. He presumably squeaked it into the law and order theme by reasoning smooth roads meant police cars could chase crims faster.

Fight like a shark, Brown.