Goldsmith In Invercargill To Talk With Victims Of Ram-Raids

National List MP Paul Goldsmith, who is Opposition Spokesperson for Justice, said Invercargill’s courthouse was more efficient than most he had seen around the country.

Speaking to What’s on Invers founder Mike Sanford on Thursday afternoon, Paul was in town talking to business owners who had been affected by armed robberies and burglaries.

He said violent crime was up 33% and serious recidivist youth crime 500%, more recently these related to the ‘ram-raids’ that had been happening nationally.

“There is just no consequence and behind that is a cultural excuse that the Labour government has exemplified,” he said.

While Labour’s target was to reduce the prison population, for National it was taking a more old fashioned view of keeping the community safe.

He believed the government had its priorities wrong, “and that has filtered through the system, and people are not being held to account.”  Slow access to the court system was another problem.

Paul said currently when youth offenders steal a car and smash it into a building causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage, it becomes a hopeless situation.

But under a National government, they’ll be sent off to the military for a year, but then it carries on with intensive supervision,” he said.

While the vast majority of youth offenders learnt once and never did crime again, there was a small group where the law doesn’t work properly.

“The most obvious thing is kids not being at school – it’s one of the great drivers of crime.  So we need to make sure they are learning something.”

A father of four children himself, Epsom-based Goldsmith said raising kids is one of the greatest joys of life, but it is also challenging and hard at times.

National is about supporting parents first and foremost to look after themselves so they can then look after their family.

It was about making sure those basic needs are being met – feeding the family and then sending them off to school.