HOOLIGANISM IN WELLINGTON

Press, Issue 29236, 21 June 1960, Page 16

HOOLIGANISM IN WELLINGTON

Minister Replies To Mr Holyoake

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 20.

“In his anxiety to criticise my remarks at the opening of the new Lower Hutt Police Station, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holyoake) appears to have completely overlooked the main point that I made,” said the Minister of Police (Mr Connolly) today. “This was that in the reporting of incidents of hooliganism the local press had neglected to mention that some of the main incidents quoted had occurred at times as long ago as six months, and that it had thus wrongly given an impression of current widespread hooliganism and police inaction. “I can reassure Mr Holyoake that his ’real problem’ is not being overlooked, as he attempts to imply. Prosecutions against disorderly elements are being brought by the police regularly in centres throughout the country, and there is not a centre where the police are not. firmly in control. “Reports from Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin indicate that there have been no more incidents than usual, so that to say that there has been a growth of ’hoodlumism’ is contrary to the facts. I might add that the police are also active in preventing juvenile crime through the juvenile crime prevention groups,” Mr Connolly said.