Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:608;Page:5914] 
11.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Does he agree with the comments of the Prime Minister made in respect to an oral question last week: “I can say that for Asian New Zealanders the rate of crime is actually rather low.”? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 Yes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the Minister is able to say that how does he account for Senior Constable Steve Lamb being hauled over the coals in Auckland as we speak because he said he would be far too busy to answer normal calls because of theft fraud fighting assault intimidation vehicle crashes disorder domestic stabbings and a sideline of extortion and weapon-carrying on the part of Asian students in Auckland and one kidnapping a week as reported in today’s and last week’s  
New Zealand Herald 
; how does he account for that when he gets up and repeats the Prime Minister’s bland line that Asian crime is not up at all? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I have been advised that Senior Constable Lamb has stated to the office of the commissioner that on average he has attended fewer than one incident a week so far this year where the offender the victim or the witness has been identified as Asian. 
Ron Mark 
: When collating crime statistics by ethnicity why does the Minister target Maori Indians and Negroes whilst lumping all other races together under such broad group headings as “Asiatic” “Caucasian” “Pacific Islander” “Others” “Unknown” and “Null Ethnicity” and how can he justify his focus on Maori Indians and Negroes when Maori apprehensions have increased by only 3.3 percent and Asiatic apprehensions—to use his own figures—have increased by a massive 77 percent? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I advise the member that those are the terms the police have been using for a long while. I believe that the term “Negro” is not in common usage nowadays by any group other than the police and I hope they will change that shortly. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Is it possible that Asian people in New Zealand do not report all the crimes committed against them? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: Yes and there are many reasons for that including a lack of knowledge about the New Zealand system of policing which may be quite different from what they have experienced in their country of birth. Sometimes there will be a concern about having their own activities investigated as the member of the Opposition will know himself. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why is it that the Minister gets up and gives those assurances when he knows full well from his own statistics—if they are properly collated and analysed—that for example in dishonesty crime Asian crime is up by 200 percent compared with Caucasian crime being up by 4.8 percent Maori crime being up by 5.4 percent and Pacific Islander crime being up by 0.5 percent and on the question of extortion-type crimes and kidnapping the Asian level of criminality is up by 760 percent; why would he want to deny those facts? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The facts are that the Asian population is 6.6 percent of New Zealand’s total population and it commits 2.1 percent of the crime. I am concerned that the member is attempting to cast aspersions on a generally law-abiding community when its offending by percentage represents half that of the rest of the population.