Minister of Police Mark Mitchell says he will not resign after a year in the job, pointing to crime statistics showing a 3% decrease in victimisations.
He confirmed the news after joining a beat patrol police team in Wellington on Monday afternoon.
During the election campaign, Mitchell promised to resign as Minister if there had been no significant change in law and order within the first 12 months.
He said the crime statistics for that period showed early promising results.
Between January 1 and September 30, ram raids dropped 61% compared to the same period the previous year.
Police foot patrols were up 30%, aggravated robbery was down 11%, and robbery, extortion and related offences down 6 percent.
However, the statistics for serious assaults overall were down just 3%, common assaults did not decrease, and theft and related offences had increased 12%.
Mitchell considered the latest statistics to be significant.
“I felt it was really important for me to put a marker in the sand and say if I cannot effect change from our new coalition government in that first 12 months then obviously I’m not the right person for the job … but I feel like we are effecting change.
“Without a doubt we are starting to see change, we’re starting to see that reflected in the stats, we’re starting to see it reflected anecdotally in what people are feeling out on the street in terms of what police are doing.
“It’s significant for two reasons. Number one, we’ve stopped the increase and we’re now starting to see the decline. And is it 3 percent around victimisations? That’s actually really important and obviously we’ve set targets as a government around that.”
The statistics were promising, but there was still a lot of work to do, he said – and rejected the suggestion the numbers were being cherry-picked.
“Those are the numbers that we put out there for you to have a look at, so the answer to that is no, we’re not just picking and choosing because we’re being right upfront that we’ve had a 12 percent increase in that retail crime.
“I know that we’re working very closely with industry itself in terms of how they continue to be effective in reducing that shrinkage as well, but we have also been very clear that we are focused on the violent retail crime because that is where a lot of the human cost sits and we’re seeing a reduction in violent retail crime.
In September, Mitchell and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon defended the police approach to the national gangs list, saying a “cleansing” of the data aimed at removing those who were no longer gang members was about ensuring accuracy.
It seemed a different story on Monday when Mitchell’s job was potentially on the line.
“[With] the 1 percent increase in gang membership – the thing I’m pleased about is that the year before we came into government there was a 10 percent increase in gang membership, so that has reduced significantly. But we want to keep that coming down.”