Resignations, allegations of dysfunction and questions about costs have forced an early end to the group – before its flagship law change has even passed, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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Advisory group bows to the inevitable
The Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime will be disbanded in May, months earlier than planned, after three of its five members resigned and scrutiny intensified around its chair, Sunny Kaushal. Justice minister Paul Goldsmith confirmed the group would wind up rather than be reappointed, arguing the group had already produced its key work programme – including Crimes Act changes now before parliament, plus advice on antisocial behaviour, trespass laws, facial recognition and the security industry.
Goldsmith has been notably protective of Kaushal, last month describing him as “absolutely fierce” and praising the group’s pace. But the endgame was hard to avoid: after the departures of Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young, Foodstuffs North Island’s Lindsay Rowles and Michael Hill’s Michael Bell, only Kaushal and Hamilton liquor retailer Ash Parmar remained. The result was a group dominated by dairy and small-retail voices, despite small retailers representing about 20% of retail crime targets.
A ‘very unpleasant environment’
So far Young has been the only departing member willing to say much publicly about her experiences with Kaushal. In Madeleine Chapman’s Spinoff cover story on Kaushal this week, Young didn’t want to speak for the other two, but: “All I can say to you is the three resignations are linked.” Her description of the group’s internal culture was bleak: a “very unpleasant environment”, with occasions where there were “one or two voices” that overruled the others. In her telling, the work programme that emerged tracked closely with Kaushal’s long-running advocacy, and she felt final advice sent to the minister did not consistently reflect all members’ positions.
The key reform – and why it’s still toxic
The group’s signature achievement has been citizen’s arrest reform, now bundled into the Crimes Amendment Bill introduced to parliament in December and currently open for submissions. The change would dramatically widen who can arrest whom, and when: instead of the current, more constrained settings, it would allow citizens to detain someone they believe is committing an offence under the Crimes Act at any time of day, using only “reasonable force”.
Critics have called it an encouragement of vigilantism, noting it would apply far beyond shoplifting – and could drag untrained workers into volatile confrontations, including with children. Even inside the advisory group, Young publicly opposed it, warning the policy was “extremely dangerous” and that “people will get hurt or even killed”. That opposition appears to have fuelled bad blood: The Post’s Stewart Sowman-Lund reported that a dairy-owners group founded by Kaushal publicly questioned Young’s political motives after she spoke out, though Kaushal himself did not publicly criticise her.
The money question
The advisory group’s early demise will likely reignite the debate about value for money. Figures released for its first year show Kaushal personally invoiced more than $230,000 at a daily rate of $920, alongside travel and other costs. The group was also criticised for its spending on catered meetings and an Auckland office lease of about $120,000 a year. Labour’s justice spokesperson Ginny Anderson has argued the group’s spend is hard to justify – and that the person benefiting most appears to be Kaushal himself, “and sadly not small business owners who continue to face the direct impact of retail crime”.
Kaushal has pushed back hard. In emails reported by Sowman-Lund, he accused Anderson of spreading “intentional misinformation”, saying she used an “unusual” date range that included invoice arrears, making numbers look inflated – and argued the framing was designed to “discredit and distract” from progress. In public, ministers have emphasised the group was funded from the proceeds of crime and it stayed within its $1.8m annual budget. What they can’t explain is why a group that was supposed to represent the breadth of retail crime victims ended its run with most of that representation walking out.
