One of this Government’s main priorities is to restore law and order in New Zealand. All Kiwis deserve to feel safe in their homes, communities and workplaces, and there is no reason that New Zealand shouldn’t be one of the safest countries in the world.
Sadly, for six long years, the previous Government’s soft-on-crime approach created an environment where criminals felt they could break the law without consequence.
As a result, the crime levels in New Zealand began to snowball. Between 2018 and the end of 2023, gang membership increased by 51 per cent, violent crime rose by 33 per cent, ram raids nearly quadrupled, and reports of retail crime more than doubled.
These were completely unacceptable trends, and it was clear that powerful interventions would be needed to restore law and order and keep Kiwis safe.
Ensuring that Kiwis could start to feel safer was so important to our agenda, that Police Minister Mark Mitchell was willing to stake his job on it, committing to resign if there were no improvements to public safety within a year of his appointment.
The public expects to see ministers holding themselves to account. I am proud that the Police Minister was willing to set a public goal and work tirelessly to achieve it.
The good news is that we have started to see a significant change in law and order, with promising early results shown across some Police statistics. This has only been possible because we’ve worked hard and fast to change the way Police work with our communities and make important changes to the justice system so that victims are the priority and not offenders.
In December, our government laid out clear expectations of Police. These included a back-to-basics policing approach, ensuring that gangs will not take over towns, public roads or spaces and for law-abiding members of the public to have their rights protected.
A reduction in victimisations across the board by 3 per cent is a significant early sign that things are trending in the right direction.
Foot patrols have increased by 30 per cent, ram raids are down over 60 per cent, serious assaults have dropped 3 per cent and aggravated robberies are down 11 per cent.
Retail crime continues to be an area of significant challenge, and the Government is working tirelessly to get on top of it. Theft in the retail space continues to grow but I am pleased to see the trend slowing at the more violent end.
Gang membership growth has slowed tenfold in the last year. Where it grew by 10 per cent to October last year, it has only grown 1 per cent this year.
We have seen several well-policed gang funerals and runs this year, with no towns taken over by gang members and Police have executed substantive operations across the country against Comancheros, the Mongrel Mob, the Head Hunters and the Mongols.
There is a lot more work to do to make New Zealand the safest country in the world and to restore the clear sense of safety that New Zealanders once felt. The Government’s social investment approach and restoration of a strong economy will have big roles to play in doing this.
Having considered the improvements in crime statistics over our first year in government, I am confident that the approach we are taking is the right one, and Kiwis will continue to feel safer. There remains a big job ahead of us and we are excited to keep working at it.

Hon Christopher Luxon
Prime Minister of NewZealand,
National Party MP for Botany, Auckland.