Law and order blitz not making people feel safer, poll suggests

Most people do not think the coalition Government’s law and order policies have yet had any impact on making them feel safer, according to a 1News Verian poll.

Less than one in five people polled (19%) felt more safe, while 18% felt less safe, and 58% said the policies made no difference to their feeling of safety. There were 5% who didn’t know or preferred not to say.

The Government announced a “crackdown” on crime in February, removing government funding for cultural reports and removing the former Labour Government’s prison reduction target.

In May it announced a $1.9 billion spend on more frontline Corrections officers, rehabilitation programmes and more prison capacity.

The poll was conducted before the Government this week went further with an announcement on Wednesday that it would “deter and denounce” crime by imposing harsher sentences, including capping sentence discounts judges could apply at 40% in most cases.

It also said it would prevent repeat sentencing discounts for youth and remorse, and create a new aggravating factor if an offence was against a sole-charge worker or those whose home and business was interconnected.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell also announced last week an expansion in police numbers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The Government was also progressing work on banning gang insignia in public and empowering police to disperse gang members, as well as making gang membership an aggravating sentencing factor.

A repeated “mantra” for the Government, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said, is that it will “rebuild the economy, restore law and order and deliver better health and education”.

In the poll of 1002 eligible voters, National Party supporters were more likely than average to say the Government’s law and order policies made them feel more safe, at 36%.

Green Party supporters, Labour Party supporters and women aged between 18 and 34 were more likely than average to say the policies made them feel less safe, at 32%, 30% and 29% respectively.

Minister Mitchell said the Government was putting public safety “at the heart” of what it was doing.

“All our policies reflect that and we’ve got a very big programme.”

He said much of the legislation for that was still before Parliament but was expected to be enacted by the end of the year.

“I don’t think we’re failing to deliver, I think we are a first-term government that’s six months in and we had a government that was in power for six years that baked this in.

“We’re starting to see some positive signs, but make no mistake, it’s a big bonfire and there’s a lot of work to do to put it out.”

He said he stood by his commitment to resign as Police Minister if New Zealand wasn’t safer 12 months into his tenure.

“If people haven’t seen a change, then I should leave and someone else should come in.”

Mitchell’s counterpart, Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen, said Mitchell had put the date down - November 27 this year - for New Zealanders to feel safer.

Several months in, she said, and the poll’s results suggested “it’s not looking good”.

“He’s staked that, he’s made a promise to New Zealanders that he would resign if they did not feel safer.”

She said “tough talk alone” would not fix New Zealand’s crime problem.

“New Zealanders see that. This is a Government that is not interested in evidence-based solutions.

“New Zealanders want to feel safer. They voted for change, but this is not the change they voted for.”

She said the solution was “things that work”.

“Ram raids is a great example where the circuit-breaker and those short programmes - about 80% of those young people stopped offending when they went through those programmes.”

She said the Government had continued to fund those programmes “because they work”.

Between June 15 and 19 2024, 1002 eligible voters were polled by mobile phone (502) and online, using online panels (500). The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1%-points at the 95% confidence level. Party support percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers, except those less than 4.5%, which are reported to one decimal place. The data has been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, region, ethnic identification and education level. The sample for mobile phones is selected by random dialling using probability sampling, and the online sample is collected using an online panel. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on party support. The results are a snapshot in time of party support, and not a prediction.

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