Luxon brands Govt crime policies ‘kumbaya and mush’
National Party leader Christopher Luxon has struck out at the Labour Party – calling their plans to tackle ramraids ‘‘kumbaya and a lot of mush’’.
Speaking at a press conference in the east Auckland suburb of Ormiston yesterday morning, Luxon reiterated his calls for a new military academy for ‘‘young serious offenders’’.
That was despite Hamilton West National candidate Tama Potaka admitting that a similar youth offending policy implemented in the past had only stopped 15% of participating youths from reoffending.
The policy, announced by Luxon in Hamilton on Thursday, would see the party crack down on serious repeat youth offenders like ramraiders in an attempt to turn their lives around and protect the public.
The goal would be to send offenders to a military academy to receive intensive rehabilitation for youths aged between 15 and 17, along with other measures, including electronic monitoring and intensive supervision orders in their communities.
Alongside the ‘‘powering up of community organisations to provide wraparound services’’, Luxon said those military academies would provide a ‘‘powerful circuit breaking intervention’’.
However, earlier yesterday, Potaka admitted in an interview with Jack Tame on TV’s Q and A that a similar policy adopted by the last National Government had seen 15% of participating youths not reoffend at all.
‘‘Fifteen per cent of people who went to MAC – the military academies under the National Government – actually didn’t reoffend,’’ Potaka said.
When pressed by Tame as to whether that meant that 85% of the youths did reoffend, Potaka redirected the line of questioning and said that 50% of participants did not commit violent or serious offences again.
The policy has further been slammed as ‘‘racist’’ and ‘‘dehumanising’’ by the Green Party, with Labour adding that it smelt like ‘‘Bill English’s leftovers’’.
However, yesterday Luxon said these comments were ‘‘all spin’’.
‘‘It is all talk, it is not action, delivery or achievement. We have got to be really clear on the consequences side of the equation. We can’t just have kumbaya and a lot of mush and no action and no improved outcomes, we have got to have consequences alongside it.’’