We knew it was bad.  

You knew it. I knew it. Anyone with half a brain knew it was bad, but now we have the data to back up the calls, the stories, the headlines from last year. Police stats supplied to the Dairy and Business owners group show that in 2023, 148,599 crimes were reported at retail locations. Lot of figures in here, I'm sorry, 148,599 crimes.  

So, if you break that down, that is 12,383 retail offences reported every month. 2850 per week.  407 retail crimes per day. 17 offences per hour. 407 retail crimes per day. How did that policing by consent policy work out for you, huh?  

That is triple the crimes that were reported in 2020. Five times higher than the figures for 2015, and that is only reported crime. There is so much crime that you saw, that I saw, we all saw that probably, almost undoubtedly, went unreported. It's only when it got serious that it was reported.  

What a sad and sorry mess. The figures also showed that assaults on retail workers were up 20% on 2022. But 121% higher than in 2015. We all knew things were bad. Did you have any idea it was this bad? Possibly if you work in retail, you did.  

The previous administration tried a softly, softly approach to offending and it is clear it does not work. And it is expensive to try and turn around youths who are set on a bad path. Worth it, but really, really expensive. It is just so dispiriting, that's the thing that gets me. You could, I could see this all unfolding, but we weren't in the position to make decisions to turn it around until the election. And even then, so much has happened. So much money has been wasted. There's only so much that humans can do, that turning around the damage that's been done is going to be really difficult.  

But we could see it, could we not? I mean this is something we talked about ad nauseam and people said I'm getting sick of you bashing the government. Well, you know, they deserve to be bashed. What happens when you tell people that their bad behaviour won't see them evicted from government housing? Shocking, their bad behaviour continues.  

What happens when you tell people they won't be evicted for nonpayment of rent in their Kainga Ora state funded accommodation? Guess what? They don't pay the rent. The total amount owed in rent arrears has increased from $2.3 million in September 2019 to $17 million September 2022. Three years of saying to people, hey, if you don't pay your rent, we won't move you on. What happens? They don't pay it. We knew that.  

What happens when you tell people that they're victims and that they are not responsible for their own actions? They believe you. And they blame others for their behaviour and the outcomes that result from their behaviour. When you create a climate where everybody's a victim, where the government and only the government can help you, you are not the author of your own destiny, you are not self-determining individual. (That is what sets us apart from the primates for the love of all its holy, the fact that we are self-determining, that we are responsible for our actions).  

This is what happens. And we all saw it coming. Everybody, that is, except the people who were in the position to make the decisions to turn this around.