Violence, car thefts on the rise at universities
Crimes including violence and vandalism appear to be rising at some New Zealand universities.
In 2013, 23 violent incidents were reported at the University of Otago. Five years later, there were 72 in a 12-month period.
Wilful damage incidents increased during that period from 69 to 104. The university said the rise coincided with the installation of a new CCTV system.
At the University of Auckland, occurrences of graffiti and property damage jumped from 107 in 2016 to 136 in 2018.
Car break-ins and thefts were increasingly prevalent at the University of Waikato. In 2013, there had been three reports of such offences. In 2019, there were at least 30.
Massey University declined to provide information about crimes at its facilities between 2013 and 2018. In 2019, there were 10 reports of threatening or abusive behaviour, six of theft, eight of vandalism, four of harassment, one physical altercation and a car theft.
Victoria University of Wellington declined to provide full records of crimes on campus, but confirmed that an incident involving inappropriate filming in 2013 and a complaint about filing fraudulent invoices in 2016 had been reported to police. Both resulted in criminal convictions.
Lincoln University said it did not receive any reports of crimes between 2013 and 2018.
No noticeable trends were found in data from AUT and the University of Canterbury.
University crime rates were difficult to compare because of different security processes and data collection and storage.
Our politicians aren’t just taking a break from Wellington this summer, most of them are taking a break from the piles of briefings, memos and correspondence.
If you fancy holidaying like a politician (and I’m not recommending it), try picking up one of the following doorstops:
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Stuff she’ll be cracking into the many books she hasn’t had the opportunity to finish in the past couple of years. She has publicly declared that daughter Neve was developing a fondness for The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Opposition leader Simon Bridges didn’t give Stuff any concrete recommendations either, but said: ‘‘I probably read, swot, study, think policy too much.’’ Bridges said he was thinking about taking Paul Goldsmith’s advice and read something more relaxing over summer.
Green party co-leader Marama Davidson will be reading Still Lives: A Memoir of Gaza by Marilyn Garson, a memoir about moving to Gaza and working with the United Nations and NGOs.
The other Green party co-leader, James Shaw, will be reading
Overstory by Richard Powers,
Agent Running in the Field by John le Carre and We are Here by Chris McDowall and Tim Denee.
ACT leader David Seymour is reading Good Keen Man by Barry Crump. Seymour was recently given Crump’s collected stories and was so excited he sent Stuff four photos of him reading it.
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman’s long reading list includes plenty of non-fiction and a smattering of graphic novels. She’ll start off with
The Interregnum, a collection of essays edited by Morgan Godfery,
Somewhere, Women’s Stories of Migration edited by Lorna Jane Harvey, No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani,
Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. Ghahraman also has Christopher Wylie’s Mindf*ck ,a book about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, on her list, but she’s putting it off until she’s had a bit of a break.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson told Stuff, ‘‘I haven’t actually made my summer reading list yet, but a significant part of it will be cricket programmes.’’ Robertson said Treasury was likely to sneak in some summer briefings and he’d be catching up on about 32 issues of The Economist
magazine.
His opposite number, National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith, will be reading Red Notice: How I became Putin’s No 1 Enemy by Bill Browder, and Bill Bryson’s The Body. He will also be reading The Hobbit with his daughters.
National housing spokeswoman Judith Collins said she will be busy writing her own book over the summer break, which will make her too busy to read other books.
Trade Minister David Parker has a summer of heavy reading with The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith and The Triumph of Injustice – How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay
by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, perhaps a harbinger of a tough new tax policy in 2020?
Conservation Minister Eugene Sage will be reading the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on the environmental impact of tourism,