Of late, one of the National Party's most valuable assets in its attempt to turn law and order into an election issue has been Police Minister Poto Williams.
After managing to fly under the radar during National's own times of woe and Covid-19, Williams is now being prosecuted inParliament over the police portfolio by National's Mark Mitchell.
Along with taxes, law and order is one of the few genuine areas of distinction between National and Labour. As a general rule, National is "tough on crime" and Labour is …. not so tough.
As a result, life can be tough for Labour Police Ministers, which is precisely why the job usually goes to MPs who can at least talk a bit tough: Those who sit on the right-hand pews of Labour's broad church – people like Dame Annette King, George Hawkins, and Stuart Nash.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was trying something different by giving it to Williams, who is not tough on crime and can't put on a convincing show of it - and was chosen for those reasons.
Police minister Poto Williams and National's police spokesman Mark Mitchell. Photo / Rod Emmerson
Williams is also relatively inexperienced as a minister and that is showing – and is a liability in a portfolio which has rapidly become very political.
Nor does it help that Williams is now up against Mitchell instead of Simeon Brown. Former MP and detective Chester Borrows pointed out this week that the battle is also of perception: Mitchell is a burly former cop who looks and talks the part. Williams is the polar opposite.
That could become more and more of a problem for Labour now National is trying to push the spotlight back on to crime.
That is partly because law and order is looming as a problem area for the Government and partly because National sees Williams as a weak link.
Covid, the cost of living and housing are dominant in surveys and polling of the issues that are vexing people. But law and order is a bubbling issue.
It is not numbers in official reports that people look at to assess whether they feel safe in their own streets – it is the streets themselves. There are frequent reports of shootings in the suburbs, gang ructions and other crimes that did not used to be a big feature of the NZ crime scene.
National's goal is to try to highlight that and capitalise on it. Mitchell has zoomed in on gang tensions and last week on the increase in the time it was taking for police to attend high-priority callouts.
Williams has not done herself any favours in trying to fend off the onslaught.
She was inexcusably unprepared for questions about the police response times on high-priority callouts.
Her office was sent the numbers by TVNZ hours before she was asked about them.
Williams response? She did not know the numbers and it was "an operational matter that I am not prepared to step into".
The latter is poppycock. The "operational matters" line has long been the refuge for Police and Defence Ministers who don't know the answer or don't want to answer curly questions. This question was not even that curly.
Had Williams been on top of the numbers she would have been able to point out it wasn't as bad as it seemed from blunt headline numbers comparing one month in 2017 with February 2022.
While numbers did rise in some regions, in the worst there was a clear correlation with the Delta lockdown when police were manning the borders around Auckland as well as managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). Williams eventually did point to these factors – but not until a day later which was a day too late.
The Omicron outbreak and Parliament protests were blamed for a shortage of police in the early part of this year, the Delta lockdowns, MIQ and Auckland borders were blamed for the end of last year.
Australia has been blamed for increasing gang issues: The deportations of the 501s in particular. All may be valid excuses. But excuses don't make people feel safer.
Police Minister Poto Williams. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Before that was her odd decision to refuse Mitchell's request to meet with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster or any of the district commanders after he became police spokesman.
The only reason Williams could come up with for refusing it was that she believed police were "busy." She may regret it and it was possibly counter-productive.
Coster would be unlikely to buck her will but when it comes to other police, Mitchell is well plugged into the police network. Information comes his way regardless of whether he meets the top brass.
Targeting a weak minister in Question Time is an old tactic for Opposition MPs and has resulted in the downfall of several. It can be brutal to watch.
A failure to perform well in Question Time does not mean someone is a bad minister – although all ministers should at least be able to hold their ground.
Some very good ministers simply do not perform well in Parliament, but are otherwise solid.
It is not fair to say Williams is a useless minister or incompetent on the basis of a few fumbles. But she is not a great fit for the Police portfolio and does not seem that interested in it.
But Labour should not dismiss all of this as simply a concerted attempt to bring a minister down.
If it goes on too long, it starts to erode confidence in a minister.
This leaves Ardern in something of a predicament.
Ardern picked Williams for the role after the 2020 election as part of her attempt to diversify her Cabinet, to try to get a better approach to address higher rates of Māori and Pacific people in crime stats.
Jettisoning her to the chorus of a baying Opposition is not a good look.
But nor is it wise to let it go on and on until Williams' confidence is completely knocked – and the Government's record on law and order tarnished by it.
Williams will get time to prove she has the mettle needed – and she will have learned from the past week. She may not get much time, however.
