Police Minister bullies TVNZ to lie about National’s crime stats

This is the sort of shit that Trump pulls with his media…

TVNZ chair calls Paul Goldsmith after police minister dissatisfied with gang numbers story

The media and broadcasting minister Paul Goldsmith has confirmed the board chair of TVNZ contacted him after the police minister expressed dissatisfaction with a 1News story about gang numbers.

Goldsmith said the chair of the public broadcaster, Andrew Barclay, had raised the story during the call, but Goldsmith did not respond to the matter.

1News aired a story last Thursday, showing gang members now narrowly outnumbered police officers.

The report aired the same day the latest Crime and Victims survey reported 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime in the year to October 2025 than two years previously.

Following the airing of the report, Police Minister Mark Mitchell took to Facebook to express his frustration with the story.

Mitchell said it was “absolutely unbelievable” that on a day the government had announced fewer victims of violent crime and a reduction in serious repeat youth offending, 1News “chose instead to engage in unbalanced journalism by running a story about gang membership with none of the context around the outstanding work our Police are doing in cracking down on gangs in New Zealand”.

Five days later, on Tuesday night, 1News ran a second story which reported on the crime statistics that the government had announced the previous week.

RNZ

…this is Aotearoa NZ you muppets!

We are a liberal progressive democracy!

The bloody Police Minister doesn’t censor the public broadcaster!

That’s the sort of shit fascist regimes pull.

Let’s be 100% clear here, the crime propaganda lies Mitchell wants pimped are a joke!

Ministers say ‘tough on crime’ working as new figures unveiled

The government says its tough on crime approach has driven a significant drop in the number of victims of violent crime.

It comes as the latest New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey reported 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime in the year to October 2025 than two years previously.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith put this down to the coalition’s approach to law and order and the near doubling of police foot patrols.

“Since day one, we’ve been working tirelessly to restore real consequences for crime, and to place victims back at the centre of the justice system,” he said.

RNZ

The lies National are claiming here are Trumpian in their delusion.

Firstly the Survey methodology changed — so the drop may reflect measurement, not reality. The NZCVS is a self-reported victimisation survey — it measures people’s reported experiences with crime, not just police case counts. Critics note that changes in how the survey was conducted (timing, questions, mode of administration) can produce artificial swings that don’t necessarily reflect real changes in behaviour.

Secondly the water testing shows drug use has exploded.

Thirdly the number of gang members has actually increased.

And most importantly, Fourthly – Covid you idiots!

All over the planet, right after Covid lockdowns ended, crime surged as people went crazy.

The truth is that crime spikes all started easing around the planet, here in NZ we were seeing crime spikes crash BEFORE ANY OF THE GOVERNMENT’S HARDLINE LAW AND ORDER POLICY HAD EVEN BEEN IMPLEMENTED!

Read that sentence clowns.

The Stats had been falling in NZ  BEFORE Nationals new get tough on crime crap had even started!

READ THE REPORT!

Numbers of repeat serious young offenders are dropping – and no one knows why

• The Government has set a target for a 15% reduction in the number of serious and persistent young offenders by the end of 2029.
• Documents released to the Herald show a rising annual trend in the number of these offenders for three and a half years, but it has now reversed for consecutive months.
• Most of the Government’s cornerstone policies on this issue are yet to be implemented, while one that ministers are exploring is raising concern: ‘more punitive measures for recidivist families’.

I have argued that the Covid lockdown was a unique universal experience where everyone sacrificed equally in an unequal society.

Building back to the same level of inequality after that universal sacrifice was never good enough and exposed the bleeding gums of our inequality.

This unique universal event impacted everyone differently.

For some, having the jackboot of Capitalism off their throat allowed them too ask deeper questions about their happiness and saw people quitting jobs to move onto something more meaningful.

For some, working from home in plush houses and leafy suburbs was freeing.

For some, the intense loneliness had them plunge into online rabbit homes.

For some it ignited a violence and anger and desperation to lash out.

The children caught ram raiding were the broken children of State care.

Rather than respond with over the top draconian bullshit, we needed to heal and repair these children.

Now the crime stats are showing us that youth crime is plummeting NOT BECAUSE OF THE DRACONIAN KNEE JERK POLICY but because society has normalised after lockdown.

Implementing this over the top draconian knee jerk policy now will be deeply counter productive but Kiwis fed on a diet of crime porn clickbait from the news media don’t really care how counter productive the policy is because they want suffering to quench their thirst of outrage.

Our petty bigotries are so easily manipulated.

YOU are so easily played Kiwi.

The Police Minister should not be bullying the Public broadcaster to spin Government lies!