300 additional Police officers, creating the best ratio of Police to population in modern historyStrengthened legal protections against stalking and harassmentFurther crackdown on gang leaders and disruptive gang convoysReview of reparation system, to speed up payments for victims
A Labour Government will deliver a further increase of 300 additional frontline Police officers, new ways to crackdown
on gangs and strengthen legal protections against stalking and harassment.
“While in Government we delivered 1800 new Police officers, the largest increase in policing numbers in our history,
meaning every district received extra resources,” Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said.
“This was a deliberate policy to support our frontline and increase community safety, following a decade of
underinvestment by the previous National Government, which resulted in 30 Police stations closing around the country.
“We will build on our achievement by delivering an additional 300 officers, ensuring there’s at least one officer for
every 470 New Zealanders, the best ratio in modern history. This will be a huge improvement on the one in 541 ratio in
2017.
“With 300 more cops we would increase the frontline by 2,100 officers since we came into office. This is three times the
amount National delivered over the same timeframe, when they were last in office.
“We will also continue to crack down on gangs. Recently, we’ve seen communities disrupted and intimidated by dangerous
gang convoys. This is intolerable.
“Labour will introduce laws to punish this behaviour and develop new ways to target gangs leaders and break their
international links.
“This builds on our effective work in Government to curb the illegal profits and offending of gangs, including passing
laws to give Police more powers during gang conflicts.
“Labour has a proud track record of standing up for victims of violent crime. We’ve established a new criminal offence
for strangulation, tripled funding for the Victims Assistance Scheme and doubled funding for Victim Support. Recently
passed legislation also provides more rights and protections to victims of family and sexual violence.
“We will go further for victims in relation to stalking and harassment by modernising our laws, to bring them in line
with overseas jurisdictions. This will include exploring the possibility of creating an offence for stalking with a
penalty of imprisonment,” Chris Hipkins said.
Better support for victims will be provided following a review of the reparations system, which sees offenders ordered
to pay victims for the harm caused.
“Being the victim of a crime is painful enough without having to wait an extended period of time for the reparations you
deserve. We will review this process to investigate how we can speed it up,” Chris Hipkins said.
“We will continue with our plans to free up Police time by enabling mental health experts to respond to mental health
call outs, pass law to make ram raiding an offence, and make aiding and abetting youth crime and posting yourself
committing crime online aggravating factors at sentencing.
“Police officers will receive better training with the nationwide rollout of the Tactical Response Model and we will
continue to support the firearms registry, which is at risk under an ACT-National Government, who refuse to make keeping
it a bottom-line.
“New Zealanders will be less safe if there is a change in Government. Taxpayers will be forking out for their
American-style mega prisons and there is a risk of more high-powered military-style guns getting into the hands of gangs
and other criminals due to ACT’s firearms proposals.
“National’s policies on gangs will see Police provided with softer, tokenistic and ineffective measures to tackle
organised crime and the reintroduction of bootcamps, which have an 80 per cent failure rate.
“Labour will deliver actual, evidence-based policies on law and order that will put community safety and victims at the
forefront,” Chris Hipkins said.