Police Minister Mark Mitchell is lauding the Government’s efforts to reduce crime in Auckland’s CBD as he welcomes new data showing assaults are becoming less frequent.
Mitchell, who held a press conference with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this afternoon, released a statement that included police data showing a 22% reduction in serious assaults in the Auckland CBD in the period from January to July this year compared to the same period last year.
There had been an 18% reduction in serious assaults resulting in injury in that time as well.
Mitchell celebrated the increase of 21 more front-line police officers deployed to the CBD area. However, that had taken effect from July this year.
“This data shows that we are turning a corner, and that a whole of system co-ordinated approach is working to make Auckland a safe city and one we can be proud to showcase as a gateway to New Zealand for overseas visitors,” he said.
In May, Mitchell chaired the first of now regular meetings between Auckland Council, Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Social Development, ratepayers’ groups, business associations and social service providers to develop a strategy to improve safety in the city.
He said the co-ordinated approach had led to 97 people being referred to accommodation, addiction and family wellbeing support between July 1 and September 10.
That came alongside efforts to reduce the use of emergency housing, with 68% fewer households in emergency housing in the CBD since May.
That was a reduction from 53 households to 17. Mitchell said it included the closing of two emergency motels.
Mitchell’s statement did not describe any link between emergency housing tenants and crime rates.
Luxon, speaking from the Auckland Central police station, said he’d been discussing with police and Ministry of Social Development staff how to reduce anti-social behaviour in the CBD.
The reduction in assault rates in Auckland, alongside a decrease in overall crime, was an “encouraging change”.
He said the increased police presence in Auckland was having a beneficial impact on the level of crime.
“We know there’s a lot more for us to do,” Luxon said, while celebrating the crime statistics as “fantastic”.
Asked about whether the trends were reflected across Auckland, Luxon said nationally there was still a lot of work to do to reduce crime. Reducing violent crime was one of Luxon’s central public service targets.
Luxon said discussions between agencies shouldn’t be “lovely hui”, but instead effective co-ordination to get results. He claimed some agencies across the country hadn’t been working effectively together.
”That’s all we’re interested in, outcomes and results.”
Luxon denied emergency housing tenants were committing CBD-based crime, saying tenants often had complex issues and therefore needed support from social services.
Mitchell said it was important for police and social service providers to be aligned in order to reduce anti-social behaviour.
“We’re starting to see some promising results,” Mitchell said.
“We are moving in the right direction.”
Mitchell claimed emergency housing had caused all sorts of issues relating to anti-social behaviour in Auckland’s CBD.
Labour police spokeswoman Ginny Andersen said she was concerned about the Government’s approach to crime reduction.
“Pushing people out to the suburbs does not address the causes of crime.
“These people need help and the Government has so far spent a year in government cutting funding from frontline services and are yet to announce what will fill the gap now that police are pulling back on mental health callouts.”
Luxon last night spent several hours with various arms of Auckland police, captured in footage taken by Luxon’s office and sent to journalists.
The video showed Luxon speaking with officers and attending a police checkpoint. He was wearing an orange high-vis vest with “Observer” displayed on the back.
He was seen also checking out the police Eagle helicopter, as well as riding in a police car.
There was no audio accompanying the video so it was not known what discussions Luxon had with police staff. It’s understood the audio couldn’t be publicly released due to police’s privacy concerns.
In a short video which did have audio, Luxon said he had “huge admiration and respect” for police staff and thanked them for facilitating the ride-along.
Speaking about his ride-along today, Luxon said it took place last night between 6pm and 1am. He looked at road policing and custody units among other aspects of police work.
He said the “total professionalism” of the police had stood out to him. Officers dealt with “pretty horrific” situations that New Zealanders were naive to, Luxon claimed.
Heart of the City boss Viv Beck said a cross-agency approach to addressing crime and social issues complemented local initiatives in Auckland’s city centre - bringing results to issues that the organisation had been lobbying for since the Covid period.
“There is a noticeable difference to how the city centre feels - the additional police and the significant local resources, including our own safety team, have made a positive impact.
“This is showing in crime trending down and the feedback that we get from local businesses. While there is a still a way to go to become the vibrant, safe, 24/7 city we aspire to, we’re also really pleased about the progress being made on addressing other areas of concern such as mental health, addiction and housing.”
Today’s press conference followed the release of national retail crime data that showed there had been 8207 more thefts and related offences such as shoplifting, 66 more cases of acts intended to cause injury like assaults and 17 more cases of sexual assaults and related offences in the first five months of 2024 compared to the same period last year - a 17% increase.
Over the five months, shoplifting and theft spiked to 49,505 cases, up from 41,298 last year, and 1670 assault cases were attended by police, an increase from 1604.
There were also a total of 106 sexual assaults, up from 89, according to the data.
The data painted an unflattering picture of the Government’s key policy pledge to crack down on retail crime with the introduction of new police initiatives to curb violence and anti-social behaviour.
“Dairy owners are yet to see any meaningful dent in retail crime,” Dairy and Business Owners’ Group chairman Manish Thakkar said last month.
Thakkar acknowledged there had been some “good news” - with robberies and related offences down 5% to 386 cases, and burglaries down 10% to 2636 cases.
“Yes, it’s less bad, but it is still bad,” he said.
Clement Lim, who owns Yuan Taste Cafe outlets in the Atrium on Elliott Shopping Centre and MidCity Mall, today said petty crime was still a problem for businesses in the CBD. Just last week, the keys to his store were stolen by a rough sleeper, and a security guard had to help retrieve them.
Rough sleepers are also continuing to break into his cafe to steal milk, syrups and cakes.
“As a business owner, I still don’t feel very safe for my business in the CBD,” he said.
”The real problem for many of us [is] the homeless people, and I think the best thing the Government has done is getting agencies that help these people involved with the police.
”But even though there’s improvement, crime continues to be a problem for us.”
Sunny Kaushal, owner of Shakespeare Tavern, said it was encouraging to see cases of serious assaults down but “many people still fear they or someone they know could be the next victim”.
“This fear is one of the reasons people are avoiding the CBD. We need to restore public confidence and encourage everyone to return and support local businesses,” he said.
“Although progress is being made, and we seem to be turning a corner with retail crime, there is still much more work ahead to ensure lasting change.”
Kaushal, who is also chairman of the ministerial advisory group on retail crime, said two concerns remained.
“First, the Government must continue to back our front-line police. It’s essential that they remain fully supportive of law enforcement, without sending any message that they might be sympathetic to criminals,” he said.
“Second, the Crown Prosecution Service needs to avoid a ‘catch and release’ policy, where offenders are released quickly and reoffend.”
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
A Chinese cameraman brought a unique camera to film Luxon in Beijing.