Six assaults on police officers are occurring daily in an environment where criminals feel they can operate with impunity, National’s Police spokesperson Mark Mitchell says.

“2,201 police officers were assaulted in 2021 – equivalent to six every day – and an increase of 29 per cent compared to 2018.

“This is the result of a soft-on-crime Labour Government creating a permissive environment for gangs and criminals to operate, making it more dangerous for police to do their job.

“Our police are working incredibly hard to keep our communities safe. Unfortunately, they are not supported by this Government which, by the Prime Minister’s own admission, has taken its focus off the Police portfolio.

“Police response times have blown out, stories of ram-raids and youth crime are all over the news, gang membership is through the roof, and now we know that assaults on Police went up 29 per cent in four years under this Government’s watch.

“This is in light of recent reports that police officers in Northland are travelling over 220km, alone, in a single shift, and police saying that they are at ‘breaking point’ because they don’t feel safe on the job and have to deal with a tsunami of violent offending.”

Unlike Labour, National is backing our frontline Police officers and would give them four new tools to make their jobs easier. National would:

• Ban gang patches, which have been the recent fuel for the worst gun violence seen in New Zealand.
• Give police non-association powers to prevent gang members communicating and planning criminal activity.
• Allow police to issue dispersal notices where gang members come together in public to intimidate, threaten and sometimes assault members of the public.
• Give police the warrantless search powers they need to take the guns out of the hands of violent armed gang members.