ACT's new crime policy, which would issue burglars with swift penalties, is being welcomed by Auckland business groups.
ACT leader David Seymour says the party's new policy is not punitive. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
With backing from Retail NZ and the Newmarket and Parnell Business Associations, the policy would have police issue infringement notices with minimal paperwork.
ACT leader David Seymour hoped it would lead to "instant, practical penalties" that would have young offenders punished just days after their offence.
"We want to liberate our local cops from the paperwork and bureaucracy so they can deal with these kids," he said. "If a cop catches a kid shoplifting, we say: 'We've gotcha, here's your punishment'."
But Seymour said the party's policy wasn't punitive. "You're making the assumption that our instant, practical penalties are always punitive," he said.
"It's not necessarily punitive [for an officer] to say: 'Okay sunshine, I'm going to take you to apologise to the shopkeeper and you're going to be cleaning graffiti off their fence'."
The party also criticised reparations, which Seymour said were not being paid fast enough.
"Millions of dollars a year are ordered by judges to be given to victims, then drip-fed," he said. "They get victimised once in the crime, then they get revictimised when they have to see their useless attacker give them $0.65 [a week] for 10 years."
Seymour addressed the media outside Hilltop Superette, a short distance from a liquor store dressed in post-ram-raid scaffolding.
Hilltop Superette owner Kalpesh Patel said the policy was a long time coming. "We've been screaming for law change," he said. "If something hasn't been working for that many years, it has to be changed."
Patel said his fellow business owners were scared to work. "I know so many business owners that have started closing early and opening late, just so they can get away from the shop," he said. "They don't feel safe in their shops."
Last month a police report observed there had been a 400 percent increase in ram raids over the past five years.
Kalpesh Patel says business owners don't feel safe in their stores. Photo: Photo / Katie Todd