Public are disquieted by gang warfare and ram raids – will the Police Minister cop it in a Cabinet reshuffle?

Law  and order  is back as a  key political issue  as  gang  warfare  and ram raids in Auckland  dominate the headlines.

National accusing the Labour government of being “soft” on crime  has  grabbed  the initiative with its  call  for  a  crackdown on gangs  and its proposal to give the  police fresh powers to  deal with them.  As  a  consequence  National has  gained  further  ground as  Labour  slips  in the  polls to  new  lows.

Meanwhile  Police  Minister Poto Williams has  looked  more  and  more  a  weak  link  in the Labour Cabinet, facing calls  by  Opposition parties  for her  to be  sacked. She  could be  top of the  list on the  soon-to-be-announced  Cabinet reshuffle.

Prime Minister Jacinda  Ardern  has  responded by saying the government is  “considering” more action to crack down on violent gang behaviour but has dismissed the idea of a ban on wearing gang patches in public.

There have been almost  nightly shootings and arsons in Auckland and Northland in recent weeks linked to escalating tensions between the Killer Beez and Tribesmen.

Police Minister under fire on gangs and guns – and attention is drawn to the PM’s gamble

Police  Minister Poto Williams  is  becoming  a  liability for the  Ardern  government,  one  of  several poorly  performing  ministers  (think of  David  Clark, Kris Faafoi,  Phil Twyford).

Williams  displayed  her  quality  as    Police  Minister  once  more in  Parliament this  week as  she   faced  questions  on law  and  order. Not  surprisingly her  performance  (or  lack of it)  is  beginning  to  attract media  attention— although  those  in  line  for   government handouts  tend  to  steer   clear  of  anything  that smacks  of a  sacking.

This  is  how  Hansard  recorded  her  latest exchange,  during  which  most  government MPs  kept  their heads  well  down.

 Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “I reject the premise that gang tensions have increased under this Government’s watch”; if so, how does she reconcile that with reported police intelligence, which states parts of the country have experienced unprecedented levels of gang violence in the past year?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): I stand by the full context of all of my answers at question time. In answer to the member’s second question, gangs have been a feature of New Zealand society for well over half a century. What police intelligence shows us is that the arrival of the 501s in 2015 has fundamentally changed the nature of gangs, making them much more overt and sophisticated. This was responded to at the time by cutting police numbers. That’s why, since 2017, we have funded the largest increase in organised crime staff, deployed 1,400 more cops across the country, and introduced legislation to give police more tools to address gang violence.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why do gangs have more guns under her watch?

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I would like the member to quantify that for me please.

New poll (does the mainstream media know about it?) affirms Ardern govt is on the back foot

The Ardern government  may  feel  pleased it  hasn’t  fallen lower  in  the   latest  Roy Morgan poll,  but  there  wasn’t much to   cheer  about,  particularly  for those  MPs  who it  indicates face  being  banished to the political wilderness come  election day.

The  key  element in the  poll – the  fourth in a  row  in the Roy  Morgan sampling to  show  a  change of  government, were there to be  an election now – is  the decline in net country direction from -5% to  -12.5%, as  has  been  pointed  out  by  another pollster,  David  Farrar.

The gender breakdown of the direction question is  also pertinent: in February women were + 8% but are now -6%.

Of  course,  Covid   is  still  dominating  the  headlines  in  the  mainstream media, few  of which level  any  kind of  criticism at  the Prime  Minister – and  there  was  barely  a  mention to  be  found  in the media of  the  Roy Morgan  poll.

Strangely,  too,  the  NZ  Herald’s percipient political  editor, Claire Trevett, defended  the  Prime Minister  for her  choice of  Poto Williams  as  Police  Minister,  even after  the  newspaper  had earlier given  her front-page  headlines  “Williams  slated, over  police response  times”.  

How Poto Williams rejected a premise and denied Nats the data sought about gang membership

For   successive  days  in Parliament this  week  National’s  Mark  Mitchell   has  been asking Police  Minister  Poto  Williams whether gang  violence  has  increased  or  decreased  under  her  watch—and  whether  gang  membership  has  risen in that time.

Adopting a  technique favoured  by  her  leader,  Williams  is apt to say “I reject the  premise of  that  question”.

It’s a neat way of answering without providing the information that has been requested.

Here’s how  Hansard recorded  the   exchange  on  this point:

While we wonder who Poto Williams represents, let’s muse on why Greg O’Connor missed out on the Police post

Newstalk ZB broadcaster Mike Yardley, writing about his recent interview with Police Minister Poto Williams,  said he had been keen to learn why she was so dead against Armed Response Teams.

Good question.

But some of Williams’ replies during the interview raised another issue:   who does the Member for Christchurch East represent?

We emailed that question to her office last Wednesday.  We have yet to receive a reply.

In the Newstalk ZB interview, Yardley put it to Williams that – along with the Police Commissioner – she was placing far too much stock on the woke radical pressure groups who purport to represent the public pulse on policing issues.

He mentioned lobby groups such as Just Speak, Action Station and People Against Prisons Aotearoa, describing them as

“… a bit like the cycling lobby, highly organised, highly adept at capturing councils, flooding them with submissions, and courting favour.”

Yardley reckons these groups are driving the anti-cop agenda and fuelling the hostility to armed police.

Arming the police: Police Minister’s explanation about her stance triggers questions about representation

It has been a quiet week in The Beehive, since the Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau Andrew Little expressed New Zealand’s condemnation of malicious cyber activity by “Chinese state-sponsored actors”.

Ominously quiet.

What are they hatching now (we wonder) and when will they announce it?

Mind you, when we say it has been a quiet week in The Beehive, we don’t mean Ministers have been quiet.

Speaking as Minister of Police (for example), Poto Williams said she will not be backing down on her strong stance not to support the general arming of police because the Māori and Pacific Island communities she represents do not want it.

We kid you not.

And there we were thinking she was the MP for Christchurch East, a community of many ethnicities.

The graph we found on Parliament’s website suggests Maori and Pacific Islanders comprise a minority in the electorate and the substantial numbers of “European” residents comprise a bigger percentage of the total population (around 70,000 people) than they do nation-wide.

Source: Parliamentary Library using data from Stats NZ

We could have had a former copper as Minister of Police but the PM opted for Poto Williams

We were prompted to check out Greg O’Connor’s CV this morning after finding him mentioned in despatches on Lindsey Mitchell’s splendid blog. 

We turned to Wikipedia for a quick rundown on what he has done and found he served in the New Zealand Police for almost four decades, ending his career with the rank of Senior Sergeant.  

He was later elected President of the New Zealand Police Association in 1995.  His time as President was highly politicized with O’Connor weighing into political debates that concerned the Police force, particularly in regards to arming officers with firearms.

O’Connor called for arming the police in New Zealand and also proposed routine arming of front line response police officers.

 He retired as President in 2016, serving a record 21 years as the Police Association’s head and regarded raising the Police Association’s credibility as his main achievement during his tenure.  

He also spent time serving as the chair of the International Council of Police Representatives Association (ICPRA).

Ministers pay tribute to refugees and volunteers (and Lees-Galloway will have more to say in a Beehive speech)

Refugees and volunteers were the subjects of the only two press statements to emerge from the Beehive since our previous report on ministerial announcements.

Saturday was World Refugee Day, giving Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway a pretext for reminding us of his existence, and Sunday was the start of National Volunteer Week, 21 June to 27 June 2020, giving Community and Volunteer Sector Minister Poto Williams a similar platform.

Both occasions left us wondering at Point of Order:  who dreams up these occasions?

Lees-Galloway clumsily said:

“The Government is proud to play our part in international humanitarian work to provide support and protection to refugees, and celebrate the contributions our refugee community makes on World Refugee Day today.”

So how does it regard the contributions our refugee community makes on other days?