Police Minister Mark Mitchell is lauding the Government’s efforts to reduce crime in Auckland’s CBD as he welcomes new data showing assaults are becoming less frequent.

Mitchell, who is holding a press conference with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this afternoon, released a statement that included police data showing a 22% reduction in serious assaults in the Auckland CBD in the period from January to July this year compared to the same period last year.

There had been an 18% reduction in serious assaults resulting in injury in that time as well.

Mitchell celebrated the increase of 21 more frontline police officers deployed to the CBD area, however, that had taken effect from July this year.

“This data shows that we are turning a corner, and that a whole of system co-ordinated approach is working to make Auckland a safe city and one we can be proud to showcase as a gateway to New Zealand for overseas visitors,” he said.

In May, Mitchell chaired the first of now regular meetings between Auckland Council, Kainga Ora, Ministry of Social Development, ratepayers groups, business associations and social service providers to develop a strategy to improve safety in the city.

He said the coordinated approach had led to 97 people being referred to accommodation, addiction and family wellbeing support between July 1 and September 10.

That came alongside efforts to reduce the use of emergency housing with 68% fewer households in emergency housing in the CBD since May.

That was a reduction of 53 households to 17. Mitchell said it included the closing of two emergency motels.

Mitchell’s statement did not describe any link between emergency housing tenants and crime rates.

Luxon last night spent several hours with various arms of Auckland police, captured in footage taken by Luxon’s office and sent to journalists.

The video showed Luxon speaking with officers and attending a police checkpoint. He was wearing an orange high-vis vest with “Observer” on the back.

He was seen also checking out police’s Eagle helicopter, as well as riding in a police car.

There was no audio with the video so it was not known what discussions Luxon had with police staff. It’s understood the audio couldn’t be publicly released due to police’s privacy concerns.

In a short video which did have audio, Luxon said he had “huge admiration and respect” for police staff and thanked them for facilitating the ride-along.

The Government is striving to drive down crime rates, particularly in Auckland. Photo / Hayden Woodward

Today’s press conference followed the release of national retail crime data that showed there had been 8207 more theft and related offences such as shoplifting, 66 more cases of acts intended to cause injury like assaults and 17 more cases of sexual assaults and related offences in the first five months of 2024 compared to the same period last year - a 17% increase.

Over the five months, shoplifting and theft spiked to 49,505 cases, up from 41,298 last year, and 1670 assault cases were attended by police, an increase from 1604.

There was also a total of 106 sexual assaults, up from 89, according to the data.

The data painted an unflattering picture of the Government’s key policy pledge to crack down on retail crime with the introduction of new police initiatives to curb violence and anti-social behaviour.

“Dairy owners are yet to see any meaningful dent in retail crime,” Dairy and Business Owners’ Group chairman Manish Thakkar said last month.

Thakkar acknowledged there had been some “good news” - with robberies and related offences down 5% to 386 cases, and burglaries down 10% to 2636 cases.

“Yes it’s less bad, but it is still bad,” he said.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.