Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

A detailed bit of work in the Herald today about a critical election issue, that being crime, law and order if you prefer, or the lack of it right now. Among other things, the work has found the number of people charged and convicted actually fell faster under the last National Government, than the current Labour Government. I think the idea there is to put a question mark into the air over which party, if it's either of them, is soft on crime. Apparently, when you allow for population growth, police are laying charges now at just over a third of the rate they did in 2009. Charges and convictions have dropped about a quarter in the past five years. But under the last National government, the number of people charged fell by 40 per cent, and convictions by 36 per cent. What this doesn't take into account is whether there was less crime in those years or what other factors were at play. And there's not a lot of point going back over those figures anyway, the reporting process has changed, what gets counted has