UPDATED 5.07pm New police data on burglaries shows numbers are up, and resolution rates are down.
Figures released show there were nearly 98,000 burglaries recorded in New Zealand in 18 months, from mid-2014 to the end of last year.
Yet the resolution rate for those crimes is around 9.3 percent, meaning more than 88,500 of those went unsolved - that means burglars got away with 164 burglaries a day on average last year.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers said they're working on raising that figure, and continue to look internationally for methods and technologies to help them do that.
He said they've seen some great advancements over the years, with overt and covert uses of technology to prevent crime, and burglary's one of those.
SEE ALSO: Supt Richard Chambers: Burglaries an 'absolute priority' for police
Chambers said burglary is a serious issue, and police treat it that way.
"A lot of staff across the country are very motivated, very dedicated and are doing great work out there to prevent crime, to respond to emergencies, to investigate and to hold people accountable."
But Labour MP Phil Goff said a critical factor in the high numbers of unsolved burglaries was that they were low on the list of priorities for police.
"The associated reason with that is that for the last six or seven years the police budget has been at best frozen and sometimes diminished in real terms so the police are looking at other things they say are greater priorities," he said.
LISTEN ABOVE: Labour MP Phil Goff speaks to Rachel Smalley
Goff said preventative measures being taken to stop crimes before they happened were not working.
"These burglars aren't usually kids down the road that are just hungry and breaking in for a feed, these are professional criminals that work with a chain to make sure they can dispose of the goods. You nail one criminal that is a professional criminal and you stop thousands of crime.
"[Police] have got to get their eye back on the ball on making sure that where there is a crime like a burglary or a car theft.. there is a proper investigation and follow up, there is usually DNA left at the scene."
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The figures also reveal a block in Takanini South is the nation's worst for burglaries.
It is a block of a little over 100 households, and in the 18 months to December last year, it was burgled 68 times.
Sue Braithwaite-Smith and her husband live just minutes from there, and said she and her husband were absolutely devastated when they were burgled in December.
"We felt violated more than anything, that someone had invaded our home, our safe place, our castle, without us inviting them in."
"How dare they? How dare they come into our home uninvited? How dare they take the things that we worked really hard for?"
John Key's revealed his family has been the victim of burglaries on more than one occasion.
Key said they've been burgled on three or four occasions.
He said the most recent was when he was Leader of the Opposition and his place at Saint Stephens Avenue was burgled - the offenders were sent to prison.
He said on another occasion, the offenders were also caught.
WATCH BELOW: Sue Braithwaite-Smith talks about her experience being burgled
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