Yoda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast.
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
The government's announced it's giving businesses more power to make with citizens arrests. Up until now, citizens arrests could only happen between nine pm and six am for crimes with a maximum punishment of at least.
Three years in prison.
But the changes mean people can intervene and stop any offense at any time of the day by using restraint and reasonable force. Retail crime costs New Zealand retailer's two point six billion dollars a year. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says retail crime rose eighty five percent between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty three, including a ninety one percent increase in victimizations relating to theft.
Today on the Front.
Page, Labour's past spokesperson Jenny Anderson is criticizing the government for the changes, saying they've already been dismissed by police as being dangerous.
But first we'll speak to Retail and.
Z's Carolyn Young about the rise of retail crime.
So, Carolyn, has there been many.
Calls for the ability to be able to make more citizens arrests among retailers.
We haven't had any requiries from members about how they would go about doing it, and any interest from people doing those citizens arrest There have been calls for the ability to actually have more powers to stop an offender in store, so to be able to stop someone, get your goods back, get them trespassed, and get them off your premises. But retailers are not wanting to engage in a physical way, so they don't want to actually manhandle someone.
They don't want to detain them, and they don't want to handcuff them. So I think though there the key differences is that yes, we do need to be able to stop people. That needs to be repercushion, but actually the ability to use reasonable force to detain someone is not something that retailers are trained to do or interested in doing, and really hard to comply with health and safety in the workplace to comply with that if you're putting your staff in harm's way.
Yeah, I used to work retail, as probably a number of other people in their lifetime. I remember always being taught not to be a hero if a robbery were to happen, and that was a million years ago though, But is that still the advice.
Absolutely, the advice is to get out of the situation, not get into the situation. So the idea is that you are complying with the person there, You're keeping calm, you're engaging with them, but in a way in which you want to get them out of the store and resolve the situation as quickly and simply as possible. That's really critical. And you know, the other thing that you remember from your days in retail is really about training. You know, about making sure that you've got good customer
service skills goes a long way. Police will tell you that eighty percent of offenders that come into your store, if you engage with them, you say hello, you welcome them, ask them how you can help them, they'll turn around and they'll walk out if they're interested in stealing something because they know they've got someone keeping eye on them
and someone giving them attention. And then the other piece of training that's really useful is de escalation around how do you take the heat out of a conversation or a heated argument or someone that may be offending in your store, and how you might approach them and identifying sort of those signals that you're seeing from people as they're coming through store.
Carolyn, you're on the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail crime and that was announced in September. What kind of consultation and conversations were had before coming to this conclusion.
So the Chair has on a regular basis asked us for feedback on various topics which members and other parts of the retail sector have provided submissions to. And then the Chair and others that were in the mag at that point in time have formed papers that have been sent to the Minister. We haven't had an opportunity to feed into what where those summaries have come from in
terms of what those papers look like. But right at the start of the mag first meeting, the Minister and Associate Minister of Justice both came along and Minister Goldsmith was really clear to us and he said, look, I want to hear diverse opinion. I want you if you don't agree, I want to hear about it. I don't
just agree for the sake of it. So we've been really clear to make sure that we've represented our members' interests and what our members are telling us and our members are telling us that, you know, engaging in a way in which you're using a reasonable force or any force and detaining someone and using mechanical restraints, whether it's cable ties or handcuffs, is not something that retailers want from our membership.
Obviously, stopping somebody from moving, restraining them as fundamentally what we're on about, well, not necessarily a headlock or anything like that. It's just holding them steady, and then the role is to call for the police and to hold them until such a time as that happens. The alternative, which is what we have at the moment, as just standing by and watching while people take away stuff. And I think general public has fed up with that.
Were you surprised to see the announcement.
Yeah, look really surprised when we heard about it late last week and you saw some information come through at the beginning of the week. I guess you know, I know that small retailers, the whole sector is frustrated, right, Everyone in retail is frustrated with the level of crime that we're seeing and the level of violent and aggressive behavior. And the thing I would call out is who are we as a society and a community around how we
want to engage with each other. How is it that we want to connect with people in a way that's respectful that we'd be comfortable of grandmother or our auntie or our mother saw us really making sure that we are more respectful to each other. But then you know, on the other side of the coiners that we understand some of the small retailers feel that they want to
take matters into their own hands. And our concern is that if you do that, you're going to elevate the level of violence that we see, and you're going to elevate the level of weaponry that we're going to see in store, and the type of things that our criminals and offenders are doing is going to change and pivot to counteract the potential changes that the minister announced.
Now, New Zealand has already seen examples of the risks of this kind of thing, and I know that Labor has said that there are concerns that people could get injured or worse, lose their life because there could be a weapon involved.
Is this a major concern?
Oh, for sure. Absolutely. When you've got an offender in store that's wanting to do harm, you actually don't know what they might have concealed on their body. You don't know their state of mind. You don't know if they're under the influence of drugs or they've got some medication
they take. New don't actually know anything about that individual often and so the risk you're taking is that you're engaging with them in a confrontational way in which they could react and respond quite violently and you could be harmed. And from our perspective, you know, someone's life is worth infinitely more than any cost of goods. You know, if you aren't here, then you are not able to fulfill
your family. You know, your life has stopped. It's really not something that we could comprehend being worth the cost of anything that's being stolen.
New Zealand has around two hundred and thirty thousand people working in retail, or about nine percent of our workforce. What should we be doing better to protect them?
Look, you know, you know there's some key things that retailers do around training and all of those sorts of things that I touched on earlier. But I think I do think that being respectful and being really considerate about how we engage with people in our communities, whether you're in a retail ste or in any other aspect of society. It's really wanting to make sure that if you were
treated the same way, would you be comfortable. Because as soon as we get people coming into store where they're yelling abuse, they're spitting, the slapping, they're punching, the kicking retail staff who go to work to do their job, we don't believe that that's acceptable behavior, and that's where
things escalate from that level forward. What we really want to promote is preventative measures, so thinking about things like facial recognition technology and how that can be used to identify offenders that have offended in your store before, to ensure that they don't come in, to protect staff, and to protect customers from in the store, to use more
effective use of trespass. So the trespass laws aren't up to date and current and they need to be elevated into a space where they are more effective in twenty twenty five, So if we can get some of those things done and an opportunity for retailers to be able to get their goods back and get pep lofty premises and get the truth passed, that's going to keep stores safer or keep staffs safer and or help lower crime.
Thanks for joining us, Carolyn Pleasure.
Thank you for your time.
It seems like there was a time when we'd hear about ram raids daily. There were a total of four hundred and thirty three ram raids in twenty twenty two, two hundred and eighty eight and twenty twenty three, and sixty seven in the first four months of twenty twenty four. As a result, the Labor government brought in a raft of changes to tackle.
The sharp increase in ram raids.
We speak to Labour's police spokesperson Ginny Anderson about this government's latest move and what her party would.
Have done differently.
So, Genny, the government's announced people will be able to make citizens arrest at any time of the day with some degree of restraint and reasonable force.
Now are these ideas dangerous? Do you think?
I think they are dangerous. The government needs to do its job and not pass that over to retail owners and members of the public. It's dangerous.
And you've got some concerns about this Ministerial Advisory Group pay what are they.
Well, they seem to be at odds with each other. We've got the head of Retail New Zealand coming out strongly saying they've surveyed their membership and they don't want this. They consider it puts their staff at risk and actually it makes a shopping a negative experience for people if they're talks of tax and attempts to control people happening in a store.
Well, what's happening there, because hasn't it cost us three point six million dollars?
Will the list of requirements that Sunny Kosho had were given to me when I was Minister of Police. So these are the same things he told me eighteen months ago. So the fact that the government's paid three point six million dollars were the same ideas that were offered for free to our government seems ludicrous in a way of money.
What would labor do differently, we wouldn't.
Be encouraging members of the public to take the law into their own hands. The police themselves have always advised people to keep yourself safe and to call the police, who are trained professionals when community safety is the risk. So what's happening here is a really dangerous situation that could have quite great outcomes for our communities.
And do questions need to be asked of how this ministery or advisory group came up with this, Like you say, eighteen month old idea.
Well, I think it's pretty clear. It's the same wish list that Sunny Kushel brought to our government. We took advice from police and thought it was unsafe. For some reason, this government has paid three point six million dollars for it and made it intense to make it into law.
So with the ram raids down and the serious results down, can we say that the tough on crime approach has worked.
Well, it's a great brigny and a relief for retailers and dairy honors. As you know, they lived in fear every day for years, you know, and people are feeling the difference between the two governments, you know, a soft on crime approach versus getting tough on crime. So, as you rightly said, the ramrod side down, the violent crime, which was increased fifty one percent between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty three, has a first time since twenty eighteen.
Now, I know we don't hear about ram raids nearly as much as we used to, but just this week we've seen two men arrested after a ram raid on an East Auckland liquor store. And this is despite them apparently spending upwards of forty thousand dollars on security. So we're still seeing them despite the apt security. So what should we do next.
We need to keep resorting our frontline police. What we've seen under this governments cuts to all of those support staff that enable police to get back out on the street as quickly as possible. Police way down with filling out forms when they need to be fighting crime. More resource for our police, not empowering the local people to take the law into their own hands, is the answer.
What worries you the most when you see something like this come through.
I really worry that someone could be seriously injured or even lose their life. If someone has a weapon, who's attempting to steal, and they're attempted to have a citizen of the rest, there is real concerns about the safety of that retail owner and people around the incident when it occurs. I'd just like to add that police had consistently given the advice that this sort of vigilante instruction is dangerous for community safety, and I'm really shoped that this government has taken this step.
Thanks for joining us day.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at ends at hair.
Dot co dot nz. The Front Page is.
Produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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