Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): You know that Labour are in big trouble when you get two Cabinet Ministers come down here as the opening speakers and they announce summer. They've obviously sat around the Cabinet table and they've said What can we announce? What can we deliver? Oh summer—we'll announce summer." The problem is that they've announced it three months too early. Then Mr Hipkins goes on to say—and he's right in acknowledging the first responders that stuck by us and got us through COVID. But he doesn't actually get out into the street. He doesn't actually get out and speak to the front line. I was with our St John Ambulance leadership two days ago on Monday. Do you know that now in New Zealand St John's have had to put two ambulances on—one in Auckland and one in the Waikato—with stab-proof vests in them. That's never been seen in this country before and the reason why they have to put ambulances out there with stab-proof vests in them is because their officers are facing more and more violent scenes when they arrive to provide assistance. I want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Simon Watts who happens to be one of our front-line paramedics and a St John's officer and who is actually in touch with what's happening out on the front lines. When I took over the police portfolio there were three things that we wanted to achieve right off the bat. We wanted to make sure that there was a proper response to the rise in gang numbers. We wanted to see a dedicated task force put in place and they did that after a lot of pushing for Operation Cobalt. That was four years too late. Four years ago we said to the Government to stand up Strike Force Raptor. They laughed at the name. They mocked the name and in fact I don't know if you remember but Iain Lees-Galloway stood up and he tried to be a raptor in the House. Well that was a really silly thing to do because he became an extinct species shortly after that. So that didn't work out too well for him did it? We knew the Minister had to be changed. The Minister came here for something—she's passionate about something like we all are when we come to this House—but it was not the police portfolio. The Prime Minister stood up when they made the change and she said "We've lost focus on the police portfolio." We thought "OK this will be interesting to see who they replace the Hon Poto Williams with." and it was Chris Hipkins. Chris Hipkins is I think No. 4. He's one of the heavy hitters—the fix-it guy. He came into the portfolio and what's he done? He's brought an insipid weak useless firearms prohibition order through the House that will do nothing and I promised the Minister that I'd be back in six months—by the way that bill doesn't even come into effect until November. They can't even use it till November. Ginny Andersen: After the nine years you took to do it. Hon MARK MITCHELL: What do I hear—the nine years under National? When Labour came in five years ago most Kiwis if you'd asked them would have said "We've got a sense of safety in our home." If you want to talk about records look at your own record over the last five years because I can tell you now that Kiwis feels less safe in their homes. Store owners and dairy owners feel less safe in their stores. Their customers feel less safe. They can't even go into our biggest mall in Auckland—St Lukes—at 5 o'clock on a Tuesday evening without facing eight ram-raiders or aggravated robbers robbing a store. The Minister of Justice herself tried to label me as someone that's peddling misinformation when I challenged their youth crime numbers a couple of weeks ago. She said "That is not the whole picture. That is not the whole story." and as hard as she tried to get that up it didn't really work. It fell flat and what did she do this week? What did she do yesterday? Her own numbers came out and were meant to be telling a good news story and she said "Oh well you know we can't completely rely on those numbers. It doesn't tell the whole story." because they know. They know that they can stand up in the House and say "There hasn't been a rise in gang tensions." when you have multiple drive-by shootings. By the way the 23 drive-by shootings—guess what that was fuelled by? Gang patches—by the theft of a gang patch by one gang from another. Why don't you adopt our bill Minister? Why don't you adopt our bill banning gang patches and insignia? There was a big issue last week and it was exactly the same issue but no. No they laugh at that and they mock it. Just like with Strike Force Raptor they laugh and mock it. Let's watch and see what they do. There's a lot of noise coming from over on the other side now so I'm looking forward to the next speaker getting up and actually speaking to the issues that I've raised. The reality is this: their spike in youth offending—their spike in youth offending—has been going on now for over a year. That's a very long spike and the reality of it is that the latest stats that came out—all they do is confirm this. No consequences. Hon Kiritapu Allan: No they don't. Hon MARK MITCHELL: A rise in violent offending—and the Minister says "No they don't." Well stand Minister and tell us why they don't. Thank you very much Mr Speaker."