Kate Hawkesby: Ginny Andersen shouldn't throw stones

So we spoke with Mark Mitchell earlier this morning on Ginny Andersen's claim that he's unfit to be Police Minister. This came about because he said the Government wasn't going after gangs properly, and more than half the charges they were laying for gangs were administrative like traffic offences or minor infringements. This is Operation Cobalt, the Government's so called 'gang crackdown' which the Police Minister is very defensive of. She fired back that the charges Police were laying were not minor, that many were for serious offences like burglary and theft. She went on to say it was ‘frankly appalling’ that Mitchell was ‘going after hard working police officers.’ Which is of course not what he was doing at all, but it’s election season, and a desperate government will latch onto anything as a means of a personal assassination of their opposition right now. What I don’t even need to point out to you here, because it’s so glaringly obvious, is that when you have achieved absolutely nothing in that space, in your portfolio as Police Minister, it is a bit rich – if not farcical, to come out and fire salvos at someone else. This is why Mitchell called it a ‘desperate showing from a Labour government that has utterly failed in law and order.’ He says he's ‘proud of the job our frontline Police do in a very challenging environment created by this hopeless Labour Government’  and that he ‘takes issue with a Government that purports to be 'tough on gangs', while presiding over a 70 percent increase in gang membership, a 33 percent increase in violent crime, and gang-related shootings becoming commonplace.’ He says ‘Labour has zero credibility in law and order, and none of the four Police Ministers they've had over the past year have changed that,’ it was reported. See, that’s the problem. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Andersen doesn’t have a record she can stand on, she doesn’t have a metric she can be proud of, all she does is highlight the failures of the Labour government in this space. Look don’t get me wrong, it’s election season and everyone’s tetchy and the Labour party are looking increasingly frazzled and strung out. When Nicola Willis said the other day they need a cup of tea and a lie down or a holiday – it’s true. I don’t begrudge them that. It could be a long lie down if they find themselves in the Opposition benches, but I would’ve thought in these final weeks, avoiding own goals would be helpful. Ginny Andersen critiquing National’s Police spokesperson, himself a former Police officer, is a waste of her time and energy. Pretending that he was having a crack at hard working officers was also a delusional stretch. Of course an opposition spokesperson is going to look to hold government claims around successful metrics, to account. The focus for Andersen at this time would be better spent on actually trying to improve things Kiwis can tangibly notice. Like the violence in our CBD's, the crime in our retail sector, the aggressive burglaries, the gang takeovers of our streets, that would be a great place for the Police Minister to expend her energy between now and October 14th. Less time spent taking pot-shots at former cops and more time bolstering the ones you have.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.