Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Casey Costello: Associate Police Minister on the report into organised crime in New Zealand

Transcript

Casey Costello: Associate Police Minister on the report into organised crime in New Zealand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Boy, there's a hell of a report out. It's from
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the Ministerial Advisory Group Targeting Transnational Organized Crime and it's
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: releasing its first report this morning. It shows a substantial
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: increase in organized crime over the past five years. It
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: shows surges and methamphetamine usage, which we already knew. It
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: shows growth in cyber fraud. So the Associate Minister of Police,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Casey Costello, is the minister responsible for the working group,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and of course sees a police minister and she joins me, Now,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: good morning to you, Casey.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Good morning, how are you.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It's good. It's a bad it's a bad picture of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: what is seemingly a bad land.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, And that's the big part is the first report
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: is about build awareness about what the reality as we're
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: dealing with as a government. We've done a lot of
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: work around the public facing stuff that people see, the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: game pactures, the sentence saying that this is what's in
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: behind driving this prime trend that we need to get
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: on top of. And the first part is building at
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: public awareness.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: The report then goes on to say information sharing is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: as a critical problem and you need to work on
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that first. But I would say that most of the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: people out and about go, yeah, well you shouldn't share
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: information anyway, when are we going to hit the crims?
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So this is the part. It's about a step change
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: in the way we approach. We have always operated in
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: silos and our enforcement agencies we work cooperatively at the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: ground level. We haven't been very good at a high
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: level allowing these levers to be pulled. And that's the part.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: We have seen a change. You saw media yesterday about
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the increase of work that I idea doing. We are
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: seeing a change in that environment and we just know
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: that we can do more and it's about being clear
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: about what it is we're trying to do.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And the one thing we're getting a lot of headlines
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: on because of the waste water and because of the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: arrest is meth usage that has absolutely skyrocketed. It's doubled
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: over the year, and the report shows that we used
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to stop fifty five catograms of metha year decade on,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: we're now stopping ninety kilograms of week. You are also
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the Minister for Customs. Does this concern you? Is our
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: border security working? Can you actually harden this up?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the good news in that story is that nearly
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: half of the drugs we're stopping. We're stopping outside of
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: our border, so they're not even on New Zealand shores
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: when we get it. So that shows our international relationships,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: our intelligence sharing across the world is really good, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: we're targeting supply chains well. But we can do more
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and that there's a whole range of leaders that I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: know we can poll. I started this work when we
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: first started talking about what we can do. We started
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: this work and Cabinet signed us off in November last year.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So we were gearing up for this for some time
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: and now we're having the rubber hitting the road.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, when will the rubber hit the road? Because
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you know what everyone has said and even this report say,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: is that successive government's policies failures have been rearranging the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: deck chairs on the Titanic. So when can you give
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: us a timeline of when you might actually make some
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: bold changes to legislation that fights the surge in organized crime.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: The big thing is that we want to be making
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: sure we're doing the right thing. That's why we've set
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: up this group of experts that work operationally, understand what
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: it's like in the field, and know what we can
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: do better. This isn't about policy people writing an action plan.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So each month's report will be delivered from the Advisory
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Group with specific actions that they recommend the government does that.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: The first report was just setting the scene, making sure
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: people understand the gravity of the situation we're dealing with.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And each month up until the final report in September,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: we will be delivering on specific actions that this government
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: can do to move fast.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: So will we get an action plan this year?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: That this is more than an action plan, This is
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: specific actions we will do each month that.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: The group will no I mean I mean by the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: bold legislation, the actually confronting the problem, not actually identifying
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the pro but confronting the problem. Will you confront the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: problem this year?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, That's what I'm saying. Each month there will
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: be things that we will be doing. Specific actions we
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: will be doing around how the agencies work closer together,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: breaking down those barriers around information sharing, how we target
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the money better, how we disrupt and prevent our borders
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: from being compromised. We as a nation should be the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: very best in the world doing this. We have one border,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: one enforcement agency, one justice system, and I know we
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: can do Betterkatie.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I thank you so very very much. For more from
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to News Talks
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: it Be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
• 4:40
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