Claire Trevett: Ram raids move is third time lucky for PM Chris Hipkins after fraught start to his tough on crime adventure

It was third time lucky for PM Chris Hipkins as he set about his crusade this week to prove to voters that Labour wasn’t as soft on law and order as National claimed.

After fumbled and error-prone announcements on Monday and Tuesday overshadowed the content of the moves, the third tranche of the week’s law and order announcements was delivered on Wednesday by Hipkins and Justice Minister Kiri Allan.

Allan proceeded to deliver a masterclass on how a minister should contend with a policy announcement. The measure itself was interesting: a new specific offence for ram raids and a move to allow 12- and 13-year-olds to be charged under that offence and dealt with in the Youth Court where police deemed it desirable.

It was set out as a last resort for about 20-50 young people who were repeat offenders and for whom other less severe interventions had failed.

Allan was totally on top of her brief. It was obvious it was not back-of-the-envelope stuff: it was explained well, the rationale was solid and there were figures and evidence around it. Allan had an answer for every question that was asked.

The measure set National huffing and puffing about whether it was simply a late road to hard-on-crime conversion for Labour as the election loomed.

It might well be seen as too little, too late given how long ram raids have been a problem.

It was indeed partly that – but not because the policy itself had only just been conceived.

The ram raiding offence was initially developed by ministers (Hipkins as police minister and Allan as Justice) in the latter months of last year, before Hipkins was PM.

However, squeamishness about taking a hard stand against young people meant it was knocked back by Cabinet colleagues. So they waited to see whether ram raiding would abate, and whether earlier steps aimed at preventing re-offending would work.

Those numbers are now clearer – Hipkins said those had worked on about three-quarters of young ram raiders – but there were about one-quarter that needed to face tougher consequences.

Clearly, the closer the election drew and the more political mileage National made out of ram raids, the more ministers warmed to the idea.

So it was ready when Hipkins decided it was needed – which was handily ahead of an election campaign as Labour faced repeated flak about its handling of ram raids.

It sets up a nuanced and staged approach to dealing with youth offenders, rather than putting all through the same processes – from those for whom a telling-off from the parents will set them right, to those who need to confront more consequences.

It was delivered in a way in which Hipkins emphasised the first port of call would always be to try to get young people “back on the straight and narrow” rather than biffing them into custody.

Hipkins’ hope will be that people see that as a reasonable and effective approach when it comes to contending with such young people – a crackdown with a mild snap rather than a bang.

Its law and order-themed week had not gone so well up to that point.

Labour had intended to roll it out as an epic trilogy: three policy announcements in three days, all in the youth crime area: the area of greatest public visibility thanks largely to ram raids and fights and rooftop sit-ins at youth justice facilities. A three strikes approach, if you like.

Alas on day one there was a script malfunction: Cabinet had to decide between two options for dealing with adults who used or paid youth to commit crimes. One was to make it a separate offence, the other was to make it an aggravating factor in sentencing.

Cabinet opted for the latter, but Hipkins was given the wrong statement for his press conference and ended up reading out the former as the decision. Oddly, he then answered questions on it too, apparently without twigging he was talking about the wrong one.

Day two – Tuesday – dawned. A new day, a new start. Hipkins had Minister Kelvin Davis with him for this one.

That was to build two 30-bed units within existing youth justice facilities to separate older and more disruptive teenagers from the younger ones. Staffing boosts would come with it.

Alas, there was a plot malfunction.

Davis couldn’t answer how much it would cost, whether younger ones might end up in the units, how long it would take to get up and running, or how they would staff them. That was all “design work” which hadn’t been done yet. It also ran contrary to Hipkins’ sledge the day before that Act and National’s policy was about building “youth jails.”

It wasn’t without merit: it was Labour’s answer to Act’s policy to plonk the 17-year-olds back into the adult justice system, rather than keep them in the youth system.

But Hipkins stood accused of doing what Hipkins had accused National of doing: coming up with knee-jerk policy on the fly for the sake of politics rather than evidence – and announcing policy without much idea of cost or how it would work in practice or the impact of it.

On Labour’s efforts that day National’s Mark Mitchell – without any apparent sense of irony – noted it was like “a couple of keystone cops”.

“They’ve got no idea. It hasn’t been thought through. It’s obviously back of the envelope, its knee jerk.”

That may or may not be fair on Labour – but it certainly made itself an easy target.

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.