The Sentencing (Livestock) Rustling Bill initially introduced by the National Party’s Rangitikei MP Ian McKelvie in June last year has since garnered support from all parties and will make the theft of livestock an aggravating factor for sentencing.
That effectively increases the severity of the crime, giving police more options in the charges laid and sentencing by the courts.
Justice Minister Andrew Little is awaiting advice from officials on the exact details of the Bill but hopes it with be law within three months.
McKelvie welcomed the cross-party support saying he hopes the new Bill would lower the threshold to allow police to confiscate tools such as dogs and vehicles used by rustlers.
“It will be interesting where Andrew Little gets with this in the next two to three weeks.
“Whichever way it goes, the Bill that will come back before the House should be stronger than the one I introduced.”
Little said the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis created a need for tougher laws dealing with the movement of stolen cattle but the law also has to acknowledge that stock theft differs from the theft of inanimate objects.
Some minor amendments to the Crimes Act are part way through the Parliamentary process onto which he hopes to tack the Rustling Bill.
That was occurring as a Federated Farmers leader said members are reporting an increase in thefts of stock and farm items, a crime the federation estimates costs the industry $120 million a year.
There have been recent reports of 170 lambs and 30 ewes stolen from a south Otago farm, multiple thefts of diesel and farm equipment from dairy farms in Otago and South Canterbury and stock stolen from farms in Wairarapa and Gisborne.
In 2016 500 dairy cows were stolen from an Ashburton farm.
Federated Farmers board member Miles Anderson attributes some of the increase in reported crime to the high price of livestock.
While welcoming the broader powers for law enforcement it needs the support of greater numbers of police to enable crimes to be investigated.
The Labour-led coalition Government has promised an extra 1800 police so some of them should be allocated to rural communities, as was promised by the previous Government.
“Rural communities need extra resources.
“There are large areas police are expected to cover and a lot of one-person police stations where rural police are pushed to do their jobs.”
A spokesman for Police Minister Stuart Nash said where those extra police are stationed is a decision for the Comissioner Mike Bush.
Anderson said staffing levels mean rural crimes are not treated the same as urban ones.
“If there was a $30,000 jewellery heist of a store in a city police would thoroughly investigate it but the resourcing issue means that same value of livestock would rarely get similar resourcing.”
He urged farmers to report incidents of crime, saying such data is used to allocate police resources.
“It is important we do this because police resources are based on reported crime.
“If we don’t report crime, police don’t know about it so won’t put extra resources in to it.”
Senior Sergeant Alasdair Macmillan, the co-ordinator of community policing at Police national headquarters, believes any increase in reported crime could reflect success by police, Federated Farmers and insurer FMG in encouraging rural people to report crime.
“The message appears to be getting out that police care but more importantly that we can’t do it by ourselves.”
Stock theft by its very nature is difficult to investigate but as the spate of theft of bees, hives and honey showed, by getting police and industry to work together, intelligence can be gathered and perpetrators caught.
That intelligence helped police track down people extracting stolen honey, which led to convictions.
In a similar vein Macmillan said police are working with Ministry for Primary Industries inspectors to find avenues through which illegally acquired meat is processed and sold.
