As National leader Christopher Luxon's support gradually rises in the polls, he's sticking with a familiar campaign theme: trying to paint Labour as soft on crime.
From wanting to deploy military boot camps for young offenders to releasing social media posts portraying a lawless and dangerous New Zealand under Chris Hipkins' premiership, Luxon is attempting to depict himself as a leader who would keep the country safe.
But Labour isn't taking the criticism lying down. It's announced a raft of measures over the past few months to tackle ram raids and gang activity.
Recent Ipsos polling showed record levels New Zealanders were worried about crime, only second behind inflation and the cost of living.
Asked what "would you say are the three most important issues facing New Zealand today", 40 percent said crime, 63 percent inflation and 31 percent said housing and healthcare, according to the May opinion poll that included 1002 Kiwi adults.
Concerns about crime and Labour's management of it runs deep.
Among New Zealanders, 62.2 percent didn't think the Labour Government was doing enough to address the ram-raid problem, an August Newshub-Reid Research poll showed. Just 27.6 percent approved of the way Labour handled the problem.
Police figures from July showed there were two ram raids per day on average in the six months to the end of May.
In addition, retail crime shot up 39 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
"Here's the reality for Kiwis under Labour - a 70 per cent increase in gang membership, violent crime up by a third, a 100 per cent increase in retail crime and people feeling less safe on our streets, in their businesses and in their homes," said Mark Mitchell, the police spokesperson for the National Party. "Our worldclass police officers are struggling to deal with a tsunami of violent and retail offending, overseen by a government that has prioritised reducing the prison muster by 30 percent and repealing our only tough sentencing laws."
'Soft-on-crime'
The National Party is insistent on painting Labour as "soft-on-crime" and, based on recent polling, the meassge appeared to be resonating.
"As crime/law & order keeps rising in prominence, New Zealanders continue to believe that National is the party most capable to manage this issue," Ipsos' May issues monitor said.
"Confidence in Labour's ability to tackle crime has also decreased."
National's focus on crime echoed previous campaigns. In 2020, then-leader Judith Collins - who held the police, justice and corrections portfolios at different times under the previous John Key Government - warned of a "loss of focus" on the victims of crime.
But Hipkins, who was Police Minister before becoming the PM, has repeatedly rejected the soft-on-crime accusations - as did his predecessor Jacinda Ardern. Both have pointed to the support Labour had provided the police through record funding levels and numbers of officers.
"New Zealanders will be less safe if there is a change in Government," Hipkins said in a statement earlier this month, announcing his party's law and order policy.
In recent bids to show Labour could handle crime, the party has said it would "pass legislation" to establish a new ram-raiding offence with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and for which 12 and 13-year-olds could be held accountable. The measure was first announced in July and legislation passed its first reading in Parliament last month.
Attorney General David Parker, one of Hipkins' senior ministers, attacked the legislation - saying it was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.
But Ginny Andersen, Labour's police and justice spokesperson, has vowed to forge ahead with the legislation because it was about "delivering to make sure our communities are safer".
National, meanwhile, was talking "a big game on crime", Andersen said. "You always do this, pretend to be tough on crime but you don't back it up with funding and you don't enable it to happen," she told National justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith during a recent AM crime debate.
Nonetheless, Luxon's promise to put serious youth offenders in bootcamps was viewed favourably by New Zealanders in a TVNZ-Kantar poll conducted in November - with 60 percent saying they approved and 31 percent against.
National also wants "real consequences" for offenders and is proposing limiting judges' ability to use their discretion to reduce a convicted criminal's sentence.
The party would see judges limited to reducing sentences by no more than 40 percent from the starting point.
"Any more than that undermines the purpose and impact of the sentence and undermines the public’s faith in the courts," Luxon said in June.
National's law and order policy also includes restoring the Three Strikes law repealed by Labour, making gang membership an aggravating factor in setencing, baning gang matches in public and stop gang members gathering in public.
The Government has taken a different approach to what National is proposing and made several steps to try and address rising crime.
In July, Labour also expanded the "circuit breaker" scheme, where young offenders' information is shared with Oranga Tamariki within 24 hours and an agreed plan is developed for how to support them within 48 hours in collaboration with community groups.
Also in July, the Government announced it would introduce a new aggravating factor for people who used youths to commit crime and also making positing criminal behaviour online an aggravating factor during sentencing.
Last year, Labour announced multiple retail crime prevention measures including bollard and fog cannon subsidy schemes for eligible businesses.
The party is campaigning on a promise to continue work in his area, including a promise to deliver another 300 frontline police officers.
And the election strategy from Labour is clear: Make voters suspicious of National's "tough on crime" rhetoric.
"Under their Budget cuts, there is insufficient money to actually get our justice system working," Andersen said of National.
"We have put 1800 extra police on the frontline and we've committed to another 300 - that will make New Zealand's police service the biggest it has been.
"The only solution that Paul [Goldsmith] has... for this [youth crime] problem is boot camps and we know that they don't work."
