The Dairy and Business Owners Group Inc confirms it has suspended meetings with the Minister of Police (and Justice), the Hon Ginny Anderson, for a lack of progress or resolve to tackle the crime emergency.

Since July, representatives of the Dairy and Business Owners Group have met regularly with the Hon Ginny Anderson to secure changes to make retail a safer environment for owners, staff, and customers.

In late August, we wanted to publish an agreed path forward with the Minister but received no reply.

This followed the introduction of the Ram Raid Offending and Related Measures Amendment Bill on 22 August that the Dairy & Business Owners’ Group did not request.

It was our view there were sufficient laws that could be employed against ramraiding than a specific offence. We also wanted progress, but achieved none, on matters that would tip the pendulum back towards law abiding businesses and members of the public.

What we wanted:

To define, along Australian lines, what reasonable force is and is not in the Defence of Property. In 2022, there were 301 ‘proceedings’ against offenders related to this part of the Crimes Act;

A widening of ‘Citizens Arrest’ so that it applies to any Crimes Act offence conducted during the day or the night, as opposed to the current law that treats day and night differently. This is why tradies in Christchurch earlier this year and NBR owner Todd Scott, last week, were asked to let suspects go;

A duty on irresponsible parents that makes them liable for the actions of their tearaway children. This would allow other agencies to intervene into what are dysfunctional families;

Tougher sentences for adults who offend and custodial re-education for kids who don’t fear the authorities, or any consequences;

Begging and vagrancy put back into the Summary Offences Act so that the authorities can do something proactive about this ‘San-Franciscoisation’ of our towns and cities;

Visible law enforcement on the streets by using Police Authorised Officers walking the streets as they do in the UK as ‘Police Community Support Officers’ to target anti-social crime;

Artificial Intelligence based street lighting and CCTV in partnership with councils to close blind spots, automate suspect tracking (especially after 111 calls) and direct camera operators to where issues are;

An enlarged Crime Fund to $40m, targeting 10,000 retailers: allowing any retail business to apply for security so long as they do not turn over $50m annually (i.e., large retailers); and

A freeze on annual CPI increases to the tobacco excise tax because this massively increased retail crime to record levels in 2022 and has repeated this in 2023 with over 44,000 retail crimes act offences in the first five months of 2023.

Above all, Dairy Owners wanted a return to the pre-2017 Policing Model where retail crime was taken seriously. In 2015, arrests to reported retail offences was 45% but in 2022 this collapsed to 2%.

As we have not agreed anything close to our priorities, if there is little will to enforce or to resource the laws we already have, then we will not make headway against elements of society going off the rails. This is why we have notified the Police Minister with regret, that we see no value in meeting with her. Nice person though she is.

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