Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says the public has "good grounds" to have confidence in how the Government deals with crime, following four deaths from shootings in 18 days.
It comes as a man died after a firearm was reportedly discharged at an address in Palmerston North this afternoon.
Asked if Hipkins was concerned in light of three shootings since July 20, including one in Palmerston North in a reserve during the day, Hipkins said he was "absolutely concerned" by "any escalation in public violence and in gang tension".
"I don't think that any of these sorts of events are acceptable.
"We're resourcing the police to be able to deal with that."
He said police had issued about 43,000 charges against gang members as part of Operation Cobalt, which was focused on organised criminal activity.
Hipkins said the Government's efforts to get illegal firearms out of circulation would also help, along with the establishment of the firearms register.
"The issues around illegal firearms has been a focus for the Government... particularly since the events of March 15.
Asked if the public had confidence in the Government when it came to crime, Hipkins said the public had "good grounds" to be confident in the work the Government was doing in the area.
"There's certain heightened anxiety around some forms of crime at the moment.
"Around youth offending, we've been working on tackling that quite intensively over the last 18 months.
"We have seen an escalation in gang tension and gang-related criminal offending particularly in recent years as we've seen new gangs emerging in New Zealand that haven't been part of the gang landscape... recently."
He said police had been given additional tools to deal with that issue.
Hipkins said an increase in reported violent crime was from increased reporting of violent family harm.
He said the increased reporting showed New Zealanders were less tolerant of that kind of offending and the increased data as a result helped the Government to "do something about it".
Asked if he would rate the Government's performance dealing with ram raids out of 10, he said he didn't generally give the Government ratings out of 10.
"There's always more to be done in the law and order space."
He said there had been recent efforts in that area - the announcement of a law change to create a new ram-raiding criminal offence on July 19.
The Government's "first port of call" was fast-track intervention programmes, which he said worked for "more than three quarters of those kids" and last month's announcements aimed to address the remainder.
"I think the public can have confidence that we acknowledge their concern around things like ram raids and escalation in gang tensions and we are doing something about it."
On July 20, two people - Tupuga Sipiliano and Solomana To'oto'o - were killed when Matu Reid opened fire with a pump-action shotgun at a construction site at Auckland's Britomart. Reid was also found dead at the scene.
Today, Sione Tuuholoaki was named as the man who died in a double-shooting on Auckland's Queen St last week. Tuuholoaki died in hospital on Friday, while the second man shot remains in hospital in a stable condition.
Police continue to seek sightings of Dariush Talagi who has a warrant out for his arrest after the shooting.
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