2022 is etched in public memory as a year of protests, blighted by rampant inflation.
The anti-vaccine mandate stir that kickstarted the year with the occupation of the Parliament grounds in February has morphed into protestors taking to the streets in December over rising crime.
The protests, then and now have the police occupying front and centre of the stage.
In February, the law enforcers were accused by protestors of overdoing their part in the ensuing crackdown.
In December, the police are charged by protestors with not doing enough to stop retail crime.
The role of the police as the instrument of State authority has bedevilled the Labour government, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern articulating the government’s policy around policing.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, facing questions from MPs on youth crime, ram raids and firearms during Parliament’s annual police review, noted that children aged under 14 were not old enough to be criminally culpable for the shop lifting and public intimidation that they were committing, saying the police had “done their job, in cases involving under 14-year-olds, once they had been referred to other agencies.”
Contrast this to Coster’s belligerent utterances during the Parliament occupation back in February when he said the anti-Covid vaccine mandate protest in Wellington was “no longer tenable.”
This softening of the police line on tackling crime 10 months on, has left migrant communities in particular feeling vulnerable.
Following the brazen killing of dairy worker Janak Patel in Auckland in November, police were forced to review their policy on pursuing offenders fleeing in cars. Coster agreed that the earlier no-pursuits policy had emboldened criminals to attempt to escape police by driving away at high speeds.
However, Coster also cautioned against expecting a major change in direction, saying the current policy had been successful in saving lives. Deaths associated with fleeing drivers had dropped.
If law and order (or lack thereof) has been a running theme through the year, the pandemic served as the larger backdrop.
Once international borders reopened, travellers to NZ were subjected to a government-run quarantine for two weeks, under the faintly Orwellian title of Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ).
Under MIQ, travellers self-isolated in hotel rooms, stepping out for an hour of exercise daily, before being released into the public.
MIQ later caused much heartburn when travellers had to pick lots to qualify for a hotel booking.
Until mid-year, the public were subjected to a carry-over of Covid-era restrictions, such as social distancing and the wearing of masks. Gatherings were prohibited and visits to the supermarket were curtailed to once a week. Contact tracing measures, such as scan-in of personal details before entering public premises, were still in place.
The zoom meeting became embedded as the safe means of transacting with others.
People and even countries operated within cloistered spaces or “bubbles.” When the bubble with Australia closed, many Kiwis found themselves stranded across the ditch.
Though civil liberties were slowly restored, carrying a vaccine pass was compulsory. This meant people lost their jobs for non-compliance with the vaccine mandate.
During this period, the government also subsidised businesses across the country, which economists say fuelled inflation and contributed to the current cost-of-living crisis.
Currently, a Royal Commission of Inquiry is looking into the government’s Covid response during that period.
The legacy of its Covid management has left the Labour government embattled in Parliament. It has had to fend off routine Opposition onslaughts on the future of the economy, with Ardern falling back on her stock response that her government’s Covid policy had “saved lives.”
However, as the year closes, the focus has shifted to the pressing issue of spiralling crime.
Going into an election year, the government is under pressure to get tough on crime.