Hostility to police clear to Minister

Press, 10 December 1984, Page 4

Hostility to police clear to Minister

PA Auckland The hostility shown towards the police by young rioters in Queen Street on Friday evening is seen by the Minister of Police, Mrs Hercus, as part of a growing level of violent crime throughout the community. Mrs Hercus said she accepted that some of the antagonism was a result of the 1981 Springbok rugby tour. “It is one of the reasons why I would hope we don’t have any acceptance by the Rugby Union of a South African tour next year.”

She said it was clear from reports of the riot that there was a measure of ill feeling and hostility towards the police.

Mrs Hercus said the Cabinet would consider a police report on the riot as the first item on its agenda today. She would talk with the Cabinet about the possibility of setting up an inquiry into the causes of the riot.

She said she would look at the adequacy of the law in two areas.

One was the lack of flexibility in the Local Government Act, allowing local bodies to put bans on alcohol in public crowds. Another was the removal of the police power to arrest for drunkenness.

Mrs Hercus was critical of hotel staff whom she believed must have sold

liquor to many of the young people who were at the concert.

“The riots appear to be mindless, wanton acts of destruction with alcohol playing a major part in the sense that many in the crowd were drunk.”

She said Auckland would get more police as a result of the Labour Government’s Budget promise of a doubling of the number of policemen on beat duty.

“The blunt fact is that on Friday night there were 10,000 people there. If we had had half the police in New Zealand there they would still have been outnumbered four to one,” Mrs Hercus said.