Police Minister Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon on gangs and police. Video / Mark Mitchell
After months of jousting in the House over guns and gang violence, Labour and National might be ready to work together on addressing the causes of crime.
The new Police Minister Chris Hipkins said gang-related violence had been escalating lately.
And he accepted that luring people away from gangs couldbe a years-long initiative, potentially requiring bipartisan collaboration.
"When they come up with good ideas we'll consider them," Hipkins said of the Opposition.
He said in other cases, National was recycling tired "tough on crime" law-and-order tropes.
"When they're just coming up with ideas that have been proven not to work... New Zealanders listening to the National Party will have a sense of deja vu and be thinking: We've heard this all before."
Members of the Tribesmen Motorcycle Club, which some commentators have recently blamed for conflict with the Killer Beez. Photo / NZME
Hipkins alluded to a social investment approach National has also referred to.
Such approaches aimed to understand and anticipate the causes of crime, and focus on rehabilitation, instead of being purely reactive or punitive.
Hipkins today said he'd received a text from famous rugby league star Sir Graham Lowe, who runs education and rehab programmes in prison.
"Many of the people that he's working with have had exposure to gangs before."
Hipkins added: "It's not okay to just simply force the criminal offending underground and say: Job done, we can't see it anymore."
He said drug addiction was a major driver of gang violence and organised crime revenue.
National has been especially adversarial in the police portfolio this year, repeatedly attacking previous minister Poto Williams, who was shuffled out of the job last week.
But the Prime Minister has now assigned Hipkins to the portfolio - and he is one of the Government's most experienced ministers.
"When they come up with good ideas we'll consider them," Hipkins said of the Opposition.
He said in other cases, National was recycling tired law-and-order tropes.
Hipkins said since taking over the portfolio he'd twice met with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.
The minister said he was satisfied Coster had a good understanding of the gun and gang-related crime issues affecting Auckland.
National Party Leader Christopher Luxon says New Zealand can't keep doing the same thing with gangs and expecting different results. Photo / Marty Melville
National has encouraged the Government to emulate tough anti-consorting policies used to tackle gangs in jurisdictions such as Western Australia.
National's leader Christopher Luxon has also voiced a wish to steer vulnerable youth away from antisocial behaviour and towards positive and productive lifestyles.
Luxon today said rising levels of gun crime presented major challenges, and he believed Hipkins was open to adopting anti-crime policies proven effective in Australia.
"We just say to him: We're happy to work with you. And we've got a good plan, we've got evidence for it."
Luxon said National wanted to empower police to ban gang patches and issue dispersal and anti-consorting notices.
On Australian policies, he said a 2016 anti-consorting law and ban on gang patches had diminished gang membership numbers.
Under a centre-left government, Queensland introduced such legislation in 2016, banning outlaw motorcycle club members wearing patches in public.
National's police spokesman Mark Mitchell on June 12 told the Q+A show that Western Australia used non-consorting laws and dispersal notices which could be emulated.
Mitchell said the WA laws made life too tough for some bikie gang members, who fled to other states.
Such interstate migration was not such an easy option for New Zealand gang members though.
'Well, we're not going to just sit here doing nothing like we're doing at the moment, letting crime get out of hand," Luxon said.
