Labour and National leaders say a fatal attack at Auckland’s Albany Bus station which led to a 16-year-old being charged with murder is tragic.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0person died<\/a>\u00a0in hospital shortly after an attack about 12.50pm on Monday, and a second person was left with minor injuries.<\/p>\n The\u00a0teenager<\/a>\u00a0appeared in the Hamilton Youth Court today and was remanded in custody. He is next due to appear in the High Court in Auckland in October.<\/p>\n Police said they were supporting the 24-year-old victim’s wh\u0101nau “as they come to terms with this loss”.<\/p>\n “Our thoughts are with his loved ones during this difficult time”, Detective Inspector Callum McNeill said.<\/p>\n Auckland Transport (AT) said its transport officers would be redeployed to provide a more visible presence at the bus station and along the Northern Busway for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the death was a “tragedy on every level” but it was a police matter and he was reluctant to comment further on the case.<\/p>\n “Speaking more generally, any violent criminal offending that involves young people is very concerning and it is something that we need to do more to prevent … I believe Kiwis can feel safe on public transport, that’s not in any way to diminish the fact that these sorts of crimes will generate concern amongst the public.<\/p>\n “It’s not okay that we have 16-year-olds out there engaging in this sort of activity.”<\/p>\n National Party leader Christopher Luxon said it was “incredibly tragic”.<\/p>\n “And again, you know, we see incredibly gratuitous and more violent crime across New Zealand. And I feel for the family and for all the loved ones who’re involved with that family who are going through a huge set of challenges today.<\/p>\n “That’s something that I think is unacceptable because I think the primary responsibility of the government is to make sure that people in New Zealand feel safe in their own homes and their own businesses and their own communities.<\/p>\n “Our hearts go out to them, but again this is symptomatic of an environment where we have – you know, to be honest – a government that is very soft on crime.”<\/p>\n Hipkins, asked about Labour’s record and plans for law and order, said the party had already done a lot of work to curb violent crime.<\/p>\n “Through Operation Cobalt which was something the police put in place during the time I was minister of police, over 50,000 charges have been laid against gang members … we’ve introduced two new offences when it comes to, particularly, crimes against women … they are actually part behind some of the increase in reporting of violent crime because behaviour that previously went unreported is now being reported … we’ve already announced\u00a0300 extra police<\/a>\u00a0… we’re targeting the gangs’ assets and their convoys.”<\/p>\n On youth offending, Hipkins said Labour was tackling the underlying causes.<\/p>\n “The intensive support and supervision that we’ve been providing to repeat ram raiders has resulted in 70 to 80 percent of those kids not going on and reoffending. By contrast, another example, kids who went to the National Party’s pilot boot camps when they tried them when they were last in government, 80 percent of them reoffended within six months,” he said.<\/p>\n “The work we’re doing to turn the lives of these kids around is so important, and it is why we cannot afford to turn back.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Labour and National leaders say a fatal attack at Auckland’s Albany Bus station which led to a 16-year-old being charged with murder is tragic. A\u00a0person died\u00a0in hospital shortly after an attack about 12.50pm on Monday, and a second person was left with minor injuries. The\u00a0teenager\u00a0appeared in the Hamilton Youth Court today and was remanded in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7903,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions\/7903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Politicians respond<\/h3>\n