Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I talked at the start this week about crime in the CBDs and how it’s on the rise, dangerously so.  Businesses are exasperated, retailers are at their wit’s end, city dwellers are fed up. And it’s not like the people running these inner-city business associations haven’t been agitating for action here.  They have, as I said earlier this week, been flagging this for more than a year now.  It‘s not new. And yesterday, frustrated beyond measure, central Auckland business associations sent an open letter to the PM.  It barely got media coverage, which was annoying but not surprising, it was after all, critical of the lack of government response on this over many, many months. But the lack of any response from government is not new either.  If I had a dollar for every person who comes on this show from various sectors and industries saying they’ve tried to get engagement from the government and failed, I’d have a fortune.  And bear in mind, this is all predating this Delta outbreak which many will argue will now be