In today’s headlines, concerns over new gang laws revealed, Ukraine suffers its deadliest attack, and visitor levy hikes.
Labour MP Ginny Andersen has admitted police officer foot patrols are up, not down as previously suggested
Police Minister Mark Mitchell has accused her of being deliberately misleading
Data shows foot patrols nationwide increased in the first six months of the year compared to the year prior.
Labour’s Ginny Andersen has conceded police foot patrols have increased after last week presenting figures that appeared to show officers were “off the beat under National”.
Her mea culpa came on Newstalk ZB on Wednesday morning, with the Opposition police spokeswoman saying it wasn’t “deliberate”. Police Minister Mark Mitchell accused Labour of “deliberately misleading the public”.
“When we were doing those numbers, they should have been done year-on-year,” Andersen said. “We took them from when National first came into Government to the date, but, ultimately, I am responsible for how that is done.”
Andersen admitted overall foot patrols have risen, but said that was “concentrated” in urban areas and there were some decreases in “rural” parts of the country.
Mitchell said it was a “lame excuse”.
“Of course, they should have measured the numbers properly instead of cherry-picking, and she got caught out,” he said on Newstalk ZB.
Andersen admitted the mistake on Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Data debate
In her press release last week, Andersen said there were 950 fewer foot patrols nationwide in June 2024 compared to December 2023. This reflected a decrease of 15%, she said.
However, the suggestion that foot patrols have fallen doesn’t take into account that the number spikes each December.
Looking at police data available publicly online and comparing June 2024 to June 2023 – the same month a year prior – shows the number of patrols increased from 4988 to 5259. That’s a 5% increase.
Police foot patrols normally spike each December.
In a statement last week, Mitchell compared the number of foot patrols in the first six months of this year with the first six months of last year, saying there had been a 14% increase.
In the first six months of 2023, there were 26,953 patrols nationwide, according to the police data. In the first six months of this year, there were 30,624 – a roughly 14% increase.
Mitchell said it was useful to identify trends by looking at multiple months – rather than comparing single months – as that reduced the impact that outlier months may have on the data set.
The minister said the trends were starting to move in the “right direction”.
“Cherry picking numbers is not credible, it is misleading and it is typical of a soft-on-crime party that has seemingly just realised that crime is a problem, after six years of doing nothing to fix it.”
Andersen didn’t specify on Newstalk ZB which rural areas she believed had seen a decrease in foot patrols, but last week she said Wairoa had seen an 88% decrease.
The police data shows there can be a small number of foot patrols in Wairoa some months, meaning the percentage change can jump around depending on what period you look at.
There was one foot patrol in Wairoa in December last year – the Coalition’s first full month in power – and only one in June this year. The number in June this year is down from nine in June last year – about an 89% decrease. However, there were 31 in July this year, up from one in that month last year.
Another area Andersen spotlighted was Upper Hutt. She said the area has seen a decrease of 75%. There is a 76% decrease if you compare foot patrols November 2023 (82) with the number in June 2024 (20), but comparing June 2023 (three) to June 2024 (20) shows a 566% increase.
If the first six months of this year in Upper Hutt is compared with the first six months of last year, there has been a 234% increase.
In Ōpōtiki, another area that’s been mentioned in the foot patrol debate, there were 39 foot patrols in the first six months of this year, compared to 31 in the first six months of last year.
Labour broke down some of the data by local boundaries and highlighted that many rural districts had seen decreases when comparing December 2023 to June 2024 with December 2022 to June 2023.
That includes Southland, which saw a 65% drop, and South Waikato, which fell by 52%. Over that period, there had been substantial increases across main centres.
Mitchell said in a statement that not every district, area or station would be on par with the national increase.
“Some have been higher, some have been lower. Police will always deploy resources depending on operational tempo, this is not new,” he said.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Photo / Marty Melville
One of the areas he pointed to was Morrinsville in Waikato. It had 88 patrols between December 2023 and June 2024, compared to 30 in that period a year prior.
“But pointing to the best or worst examples of a statistic is not useful,” the minister said.
“That’s why we are looking at the overall trend, over a long period of time. The more you zoom out, the more the data says. And what the overall data says is that, nationally, police foot patrols are up 10% under this Government.”
There actually appears to have been a decrease in the number of foot patrols in some urban centres in the first six months of this year compared to the first six months of last year.
For example, in Auckland Central, it’s gone from 5687 last year to 5236 this year. In Wellington Central, it’s fallen from 499 to 366, but in Christchurch, it’s increased just slightly from 415 to 434.
So where has the nationwide increase in the first six months of this year come from? Looking at the police data, some of the biggest increases include in Manurewa, Ponsonby, Papakura, Hamilton Central, Palmerston North, Dunedin Central and Alexandra.
July appears to have been a big month for foot patrols – though without any data for August yet available it’s unclear if that has been sustained.
There were 6986 foot patrols nationwide that month, up from 4727 in July last year. Mitchell announced in June that more police would be deployed in Auckland CBD from July 1.
The number of patrols in Auckland Central in July was 937, up from 866 that month a year before. In Wellington Central, the number jumped from 125 in July 2023 to 459 in July this year. In Christchurch, the figure went from 66 last July to 223 in July this year.
Mitchell responds to Police Association
While speaking on Newstalk ZB, Mitchell also responded to concerns from the Police Association that the November implementation date for the Government’s new gang laws – which includes banning patches in public places – was “going to put pressure on police”.
“It’s not like police have a lot of free time as it is – we’re pretty stretched resource-wise even to get the training done, much less to start policing it,” president Chris Cahill said.
On the radio, Mitchell said: “I see there was an article today from the Police Association saying it’s all too hard with the new legislation coming in.
“I can tell you the Police Association has been talking to me for three years saying it’s intolerable risk to their frontline police officers, which I agree with, because of the gangs and the violence, the guns and the way they are operating.”
He then recounted a story from when he was a dog handler in Gisborne. He said he was sent to a callout in Wairoa where a mother had called officers to say her daughter had been “lured into the Mongrel Mob pad” and she was concerned she was being gang-raped.
Mitchell said he and a senior sergeant went as Wairoa had low staff. He said there was just two of them and 40 patched gang members, but he knew a brigade was on its way.
“We dealt with that. The police have got the resources, they have got the ability to be able to deal with gangs. I completely totally back them and this legislation is going to give them the powers they need to continue to enforce and let the public know our police are controlling the streets and not the gangs.”
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.
