MPs, police face questions at public meeting on Auckland crime

Residents and business owners gathered for a public meeting on crime in Auckland tonight where MPs faced questions on ram raids, mental health, gangs and police resources.

Speakers included Labour list MP Helen White, National's police spokesman Mark Mitchell, the party's Corrections spokesman Simon O'Connor, and Auckland Police area commander Grae Anderson.

The meeting - hosted by chair of the Dairy and Business Owners' Group Sunny Kaushal - came amid a spike in ram-raid burglaries, which have increased by 400 per cent over the past five years with 76 per cent of those being caught under the age of 18, RNZ has reported.

Police Minister Chris Hipkins said last week there have been 129 recorded ram raids since May and the majority had been in Auckland.

Reported crime victimisation rates hit a record high of more than 30,000 in May - the same month Auckland recorded an average of more than three shootings a day.

Sunny Kaushal, chair of the Dairy and Business Owners' Group, hosted a public meeting on crime in Auckland on Monday night. Photo / Supplied

"Victimisation" in police parlance means reported crime for which there is a direct victim, so illicit drug offences are not included.

Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick, Justice Minister Kiri Allan and Police Minister Chris Hipkins were invited but did not attend the meeting.

Members of the public who attended the meeting shared their own experiences with crime or police - including a 22-year-old woman who said she had been the victim of four aggravated robberies.

Police responded to an incident in 2008 quickly, however, in 2018, she said she was told her incident was not a high enough priority. Officers were not able to come to her house until 3pm the following day.

National's Corrections spokesman Simon O'Connor said ram raids were targeting retail business owners that were "already doing it tough" and he was genuinely worried something was going to "go severely wrong" soon.

O'Connor referenced an incident in April where Waikato police found four children, one as young as 7, holding stolen toys after breaking into a Hamilton shopping centre.

"That's the biggest cry for help ... not just from the child but the family," he said.

"Where are the social workers?"

Meanwhile, Labour's White said issues about crime had existed before her party came into power and some issues in the city had been compounded by Covid-19, including teenagers who had become disconnected from school.

On homelessness, White stressed the need for "humanitarian" solutions - rather than spraying people who were sleeping rough with water, a reference to a similar campaign policy suggested by former Auckland mayoral candidate Leo Molloy.

At the meeting, National's Mitchell said a "co-response" model between police and health services was needed to help address crime in Auckland where offenders also had mental health requirements.

Anderson rebutted inferences from a resident that police had left the CBD with the closure of its Auckland Central police station and said: "We are in the city, we have never left the city."