National leader hits out over living costs, crime
National is calling for people to tell their stories about soaring living costs as inflation bites.
Speaking in Christchurch yesterday, National leader Christopher Luxon launched a website for people to tell the party how they were faring.
Living costs were the biggest challenge facing the public, Luxon said.
‘‘The reality is that the prices of everything is going up, people’s wages aren’t keeping up, and as a result everyone’s worse off than they were 12 months ago,’’ he said.
This month, inflation hit a 31-year high and both National and ACT have blamed Labour for inflationary policies.
The Government blames overseas Covid and war-related factors that are out of its control.
The National leader also hit out over the Government’s record on crime.
There has been a recent spike in ramraids across Auckland city. Most ramraid offenders are under the age of 17.
Auckland’s Louis Vuitton and Gucci stores were ramraided on April 11, and one dairy has been hit four times this year.
A Christchurch liquor store and dairy were also ramraided earlier this week.
Luxon laid out three steps when asked how to address ramraids and youth crime.
First, police needed to review their pursuit policy, ‘‘because these young people know that they can’t be chased, and therefore they can get away and there’s no consequences,’’ he said.
In late 2020, police advised officers to no longer pursue drivers who were speeding, acting suspiciously or fleeing for no apparent reason.
Second, Luxon called for search powers to be attached to firearm prohibition orders, ‘‘so we can actually go get the source of illegal guns’’.
Third, he said the police need to have a gang taskforce, because instances of serious crime and gang numbers were rising.
Luxon said he was sure there was a correlation between rising youth violence and truancy statistics.
‘‘Basically we’ve got parents that are sort of having kids, raising kids, that aren’t accountable for their actions, they’re not understanding personal responsibility,’’ he said.