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Paul Goldsmith: Justice Minister defends early end to retail crime advisory group · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: Heather Duple s l Father.
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  Speaker 2: After listening to that, I sided with Winston Trevor. We're
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  Speaker 2: going to come back to that. That's a fair point
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  Speaker 2: to make. Seventeen past five. Now the Retail Advisory the
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  Speaker 2: Retail Crime Advisory Group is being scrapped early. It's been
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  Speaker 2: announced the group is going to go. It's been in
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  Speaker 2: hot water obviously. In recent months. Three of the five
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  Speaker 2: members resigned due to leadership issues, and Paul Goldsmith is
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  Speaker 2: the Justice Minister.
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  Speaker 3: Hi Paul, Hello, how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you. So why have the others
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  Speaker 2: quit now?
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  Speaker 3: Well, no, what happened was that we set this group
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  Speaker 3: up for two years to focus on retail crime and
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  Speaker 3: coming up with practical suggestions that will reduce that. It
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  Speaker 3: was supposed to end in September. They've come up with
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  Speaker 3: a lot of good ideas, particularly around helping small retailers
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  Speaker 3: push back against the tide of crime that we inherited.
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  Speaker 3: They've done most of the work. As it happened, three
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  Speaker 3: of the five members have left early, and so I've
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  Speaker 3: decided to wrap it up in the next three months.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, okay, so there haven't been further resignations. These
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  Speaker 2: are just the existing resignations. So in which case, when
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  Speaker 2: the resignations were first announced, you seem to be keen
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  Speaker 2: to carry it on. So what's changed, what's changed your mind?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I said I'd take stock, and I took stock,
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  Speaker 3: and I decided, well, I could try and sort of
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  Speaker 3: appoint new people for the next six months, but while
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  Speaker 3: it wrapped up, or the simpler thing to do was say, look,
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  Speaker 3: you've got a couple of things that you need to finish.
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  Speaker 3: You've got three months to do that, and then we'll
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  Speaker 3: all go off on our merry way. And the government's
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  Speaker 3: got lots of ideas to work with and it's all
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  Speaker 3: about trying to reduce the level of retail crime.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I mean, it is somewhat ridiculous to have a
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  Speaker 2: committee that's only got two people on it, So why
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  Speaker 2: not just disband it now rather than carrying on for
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  Speaker 2: another three months.
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  Speaker 3: Well, because they're halfway through a couple of issues around
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  Speaker 3: facial recognition and the security industry, they can bring in
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  Speaker 3: some expert advice just to finish that off. And so
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  Speaker 3: I didn't want to just cut them off midway through.
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  Speaker 3: In relation to those two as use, the basic reality
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  Speaker 3: is that they've been very efficient. They've got through a
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  Speaker 3: lot of work. If you're thinking about the Crimes Amendment
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  Speaker 3: Bill that we've got before Parliament, around citizens arrest issues,
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  Speaker 3: around infringement fines for shoplifting, tresspass orders, and there's public
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  Speaker 3: public public sort of safety issues more broadly. So they've
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  Speaker 3: come up with some good ideas and you know, I've
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  Speaker 3: been quite sort of controversial at times, and I wanted
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  Speaker 3: that because you know, we need to have some ferocious
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  Speaker 3: defense of retailers working in New Zealand and pushing.
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  Speaker 2: Back to what's been the most controversial though, is how
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  Speaker 2: much money Sunny Coacial has been charging and apparently working
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  Speaker 2: every single hour that he's awake. Do you regret that?
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  Speaker 3: No, Look, I mean, look, there's been constant a focus
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  Speaker 3: on Sonny and what he's been up to, and look,
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  Speaker 3: I just all I'm interested in is results, and what
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to see was some good, art hitting ideas
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  Speaker 3: that will make a difference to people who are working
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  Speaker 3: at the retail sector and pushing back against the tired
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  Speaker 3: of crime that we inherited and the good newsers were
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  Speaker 3: making great progress on that and there's more to do.
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  Speaker 2: Paul is good to talk to you mate. Thanks very much,
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  Speaker 2: Paul Goldsmith, Justice Minister.
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