Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nicole McKee: Associate Justice Minister on the Government's meth plan

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Nicole McKee: Associate Justice Minister on the Government's meth plan · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Another government having another crack at the meth problem. There'll
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  Speaker 1: be an ad campaign, joint ops between Customs Defense, the GCSB,
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  Speaker 1: tougher police powers, border security. Meth use, as you know,
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  Speaker 1: has doubled last year, heading nearly fifteen hundred kilos. Nicole McKees,
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  Speaker 1: the Associate Minister of Justice with me this morning, Minister,
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  Speaker 1: Good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: How much like do you have a number? What impact
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  Speaker 1: will this have on the supply of meth in New Zealand?
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  Speaker 1: Will we have ten thousand fewer addicts as a result
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  Speaker 1: of the program you've announced, do we know?
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing, Ryan, is that we've known for
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  Speaker 2: the last twenty years that we've got a meth and
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  Speaker 2: phetamine problem in New Zealand, but no one's actually been
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  Speaker 2: able to coordinate to do anything about it. So there's
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  Speaker 2: been no stats around whether or not we are having
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  Speaker 2: any any effect in the right areas, and it would
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  Speaker 2: seem that we're not when we see that there's a
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  Speaker 2: doubling in the consumption over the last year, when we
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  Speaker 2: see that there's a two hundred and sixty six percent
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  Speaker 2: increase in at the border. So what we can do
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  Speaker 2: is actually implement some of these ideas. So we've got
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  Speaker 2: whole justice sector, Ministers of come in, looked at our portfolios.
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  Speaker 2: What can we do. I can smash it in the
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  Speaker 2: organized crime criminal proceeds area, for example, can we funnel
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  Speaker 2: that money back into the community, And then how do
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  Speaker 2: we assess it? What is it that we're actually going
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  Speaker 2: to be looking for? And I guess some of the
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  Speaker 2: areas that we already know about. So we have this
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  Speaker 2: massive increase in violence, for example. So this fits very nicely,
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  Speaker 2: this plan of what we're doing into the government's target
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  Speaker 2: four of twenty thousand fewer victims by the end of
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty nine. So we look at the victims and
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  Speaker 2: we know that there is a portion of people on
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  Speaker 2: meth the'refore times likely to commit violence. We know that
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  Speaker 2: those that are on meth are also three points six
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  Speaker 2: times more likely to be victims, so we can measure
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  Speaker 2: it if we see that coming down.
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  Speaker 1: I get all that, but as you have said, we
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  Speaker 1: know that the problem's gotten way worse despite everything we
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  Speaker 1: have been doing. So yeah, it is. And how radically
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  Speaker 1: different is this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think the coordinated approach, not just going off
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  Speaker 2: after them at the border, not just me going after
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  Speaker 2: their funds of misery and giving it back to the community,
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  Speaker 2: but also looking at how we can support the community.
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  Speaker 2: So as an example, eleven million dollars is going into
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  Speaker 2: the Resilience to Organize Crime and Communities, a police initiative
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  Speaker 2: that helps the communities use their own community networks to
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  Speaker 2: support them to get off mess stay off mess. We've
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  Speaker 2: also got.
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  Speaker 1: What's eleven million?
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  Speaker 2: Is it? So it's eleven eleven million dollars.
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  Speaker 1: The shortage of rehab beds in this country is a
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  Speaker 1: massive problem. Is eleven million dollars going to fix it?
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  Speaker 2: Well, eleven million dollars is going into the rock Work
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  Speaker 2: program to make sure that we can utilize what we
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  Speaker 2: have in our community. This is pulling everything together from
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  Speaker 2: all angles instead of just attacking one. So that eleven
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  Speaker 2: million dollars is not over four years until the end
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  Speaker 2: of December twenty twenty six, helps us pull everything up,
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  Speaker 2: identify where these community lead projects are. Twenty three million
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  Speaker 2: dollars going into a police AML team working with our
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  Speaker 2: international partners. Thirty million dollars also going into secondary school
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  Speaker 2: based teams. I mean there's money going into all sorts
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  Speaker 2: of areas so we can tackle it from we.
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  Speaker 1: Will see it, mister, we will see whether that bears fruit.
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  Speaker 1: Appreciate your time this morning, Nicole McKee, who's the Associate
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  Speaker 1: Justice Minister. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:42
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