Prime Minister Bill English has assured the community that a National led government would tackle crime head on.
“I think what matters to dairies is that the way now dairy owners and police work together minimise the risk, so we are seeing a reduction in the incidences of aggravated robberies.
“It does need assertive policing,” Mr English told to The Indian Weekender.
Speaking exclusively to The Indian Weekender, ahead of elections, about community’s expectations and aspirations on a range of issues, Prime Minister reiterated that the National government has been watchful of the slight increase in serious crimes, whereas there was a decline in overall youth crime rate in the country.
When asked if it was fair to say that it took a long time for the National government to acknowledge that small businesses and dairy owners are facing a problem of increase in overall crime, Prime Minister strongly rejected any such suggestions.
“No, it is not fair to say that we have been slow.
“We have a strong focus on getting crime rates down generally, and actually, crime rates are coming down particularly for young people,” Prime minister said.
“What you have with dairy owners was an outbreak of aggravated robberies that’s why in January this year we have announced the recruitment of 1100 new police officers,” Mr English added.
“Two-three years before that we invested millions in making our police mobile so that they can spend 10-20 per cent more time on the beat to collect evidence and reporting.
“That was a big step up and now more when we are recruiting more police officers,” Mr English further added.
However, the key emphasis was in explaining the value of newly proposed boot camps for regulating the behaviour of young serious offenders.
“The other thing that the community would be interested to hear about will be that we are setting up a junior military academy to deal with about 150 young hardcore offenders.
“We are setting them up as an alternative to prison because these are young people who have been kid-criminal(ed) who don’t follow any rules or have any respect.
“So we have to change their view about the world otherwise they will remain committed criminals throughout their lives,” Mr English asserted.
Prime Minister also rejected some suggestions that National’s recent announcement on Young serious offenders was a mere election sop without any intention to implement anytime soon.
“That is happening now.
“Police are being recruited as we speak and work with those 150 offenders is being planned. Alongside them, there are about 2000 more kids between the age group of 11 to 14 who have committed minor offences and would potentially turn into hardened criminals in future.
“We are working assertively now to prevent crime and to prevent crimes in future,” Mr English concluded.