Wendy Geus: National Party Faithful Return in Their Droves to the Fold

Newly minted Justice Minister Kiri Allan has been quick out of the blocks with some rhetoric of her own, calling National’s ‘soft on crime’ line “abhorrent” and (the old faithful) decrying their “knee jerk reaction” to the current crime wave, which even Allan does not deny.

Despite low voter turn-out, it was clear the thousands of Tauranga voters who returned to National (from Labour) in the by-election, giving Uffindell over 6000 more votes than Tinetti, didn’t agree that National’s ‘soft on crime’ accusation is just “abhorrent rhetoric”.

Sam Ufindell has his own member’s bill ready to go before parliament, promising a tough-on-crime approach in his city. A couple of the measures include banning gang patches in public and confiscating motorbikes for a month as punishment for associating and causing a public nuisance.