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Speaker 1: Afternoon. While the government has already had its target of

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Speaker 1: reducing victims of violent crime, it wanted that number to

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Speaker 1: drop by twenty thousand people. It's now dropped by twenty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand people. And I wanted to drop the number

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Speaker 1: by twenty twenty nine, twenty twenty nine, it's already there.

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Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell is the Police Minister and with us now

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Speaker 1: haymrich Hi Heather, what do you reckon cause the number

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Speaker 1: to drop off so in such a big way.

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Speaker 2: I just think that obviously, as the incoming government, we

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Speaker 2: had a big focus on public safety, which meant that

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Speaker 2: we stopped releasing people from prison. The previous government had

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Speaker 2: a target of around twenty percent, which they achieved. At

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Speaker 2: the same time we had an over thirty percent increase

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Speaker 2: in violent crime. We've gone the other way. Plus you've

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Speaker 2: had obviously some very good legislation come through, a gang legislation.

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Speaker 2: But fundamentally, I think that for me, I'm very proud

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Speaker 2: of the work that both the police and corrections have

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Speaker 2: done as my agencies, but this is a whole of

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Speaker 2: society response. Local government have being really good to work with.

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Speaker 2: You've got cpn Z, you've got our Mary Wardens you've

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Speaker 2: got community groups that are all sort of working to

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Speaker 2: tackle the problem. The police can't do it on their own,

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Speaker 2: and although we've got a long way to go, this

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Speaker 2: is a really good early start.

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Speaker 1: How much of this, though, can you actually claim credit

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Speaker 1: for given that some of this falls, in fact, most

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Speaker 1: of us falls within Labour's period.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's funny you say that. When the first

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Speaker 2: survey came out three months into government and there'd been

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Speaker 2: a massive increase, we were blamed for that, and now

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Speaker 2: sixteen months in when we see a decrease Labored some

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Speaker 2: people are trying to give Labor the credit. I completely

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Speaker 2: reject that. We've seen We've definitely seen the numbers and

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Speaker 2: the police numbers starting to reduce. We've got a very

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Speaker 2: different approach around public safety. We're putting victims first, and

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Speaker 2: I think we're starting to see the results of that.

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Speaker 1: I noticed, though, there's a warning there that these numbers

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Speaker 1: are going to be volatile, which feels a little bit

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Speaker 1: like you guys are hedging your bets and possibly preparing

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Speaker 1: for it to go up again. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's the nature of this, is it? For as

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Speaker 2: long as people have been committing crime? Is that you'll

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Speaker 2: get peaks and troths. What we want to we're aiming

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Speaker 2: for as a long term trend downwards and that's what

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Speaker 2: we've focused on and that's what we want to deliver

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Speaker 2: for the country.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, Keep it up, Thank you very much, Mike Mitchell,

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Speaker 1: the Police Minister. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,

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