Kate Hawkesby: I hope the Government reflects on what they've done

So while we were away the news from home was pretty much standard.

Another MP facing conflict of interest questions (looking at you Peeni Henare), another MP in meltdown and on leave, another Dairy owner attacked, the (entirely predictable) revelation that government debt was way higher than forecast, the disturbing news of half a billion dollars on almost expired RAT tests being stored in a warehouse exemplifying the very worst of this government’s wastage of our money, more youths on roofs being handed KFC for their troubles, and some more gaslighting by Ministers regards how we’re all feeling.

Fresh from her ‘we’re all feeling safer’ tone deaf blunder, Police minister Ginny Andersen was busy alleging that Labour hasn’t failed on crime.  She ‘does not accept,’ it was reported, that the Government's record on crime is a "social and moral failure". Not even ‘hammer wielding offenders storming a Dairy and injuring two people’ could sway her.

Nope, nothing to see here. No issues with crime, it’s all hunky dory folks!

Just in the interests of data, which tends to outweigh and contradict the Police Minister’s opinions, records show “retail crime shot up 39 percent between 2018 and 2022..” according to Ministry of justice figures. The Nat’s Paul Goldsmith blames government mixed messaging. He says, “the one target that they've had is to reduce the prison population irrespective of what's happening in the community and they've created a culture of excuses for crime and that has led to this sense of impunity," it was reported. And he’s right isn’t he? No real consequences for crime and the offenders know it.

But when asked if the Government’s soft on crime, Police Minster Ginny Andersen said she ‘refuted it’ (straight from the Jacinda playbook). But she can refute it all she wants, she can deny they’re soft on crime, she can claim it’s not a failure of her government, but the facts and the numbers speak for themselves. The evidence daily in our communities speaks for itself. We know how we feel (not safer), we know what’s going on at our local dairies, (increased and more violent crime) we know what’s happening at Police level (fewer arrests, fewer charges) and we know how it all ends up in our justice system (a cultural background report, a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket and at best an ankle bracelet).

This is not to be sneering or nit-picky about what’s going on, it’s just the facts. And it's why the Government should spend less time gas lighting and telling us nothing to see here when we see it very clearly with our own eyes on a daily basis.

I really hope that when this government is finally relieved of its shambolic approach to running our country in October, that they take some time to reflect on what they’ve done here. Leaving behind eye watering levels of debt, a warehouse full of millions of dollars worth of expiring RAT tests, a country divided, record levels of crime and truancy, a health system in tatters... it's not pretty. For a government that promised to be transformational, honest, open and transparent, they’ve been nothing but a bumbling circus act of failures and waste. I for one, won’t miss them.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.