Federated Farmers is calling on the Government to deploy the army to rural areas of Coromandel, East Cape, and Hawke's Bay in an effort to deter crime.
According to Federated Farmers CEO Terry Copeland, who recently visited Hawke's Bay, many property owners in the region expressed serious concerns about their safety and the security of their homes.
Tova O'Brien asked Copeland on Tuesday morning to provide examples of what crime those on rural properties have experienced.
"Things like intimidation where cars and people have come up and are clearly scoping the area," Copeland said.
"It's been thwarted at this stage by having locals looking out for each other. But what we don't want to see happening is local people starting to take action themselves."
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has claimed that people seen with video cameras or going past properties are more often disaster tourists rather than people scoping out properties for looting. O'Brien asked Copeland if he has actual examples.
"There's certainly examples of people trespassing. We've had cases of people looking through windows, trying to open up doors. We've had cases of people entering into properties or farmland."
O'Brien asked if those instances had been reported to the police.
"Some have, some haven't," Copeland replied.
With only some incidents being reported to Police, O'Brien enquired why the army should be called in when there doesn't appear to be evidence backing it up.
"I think in times of national emergency, there has certainly been precedent. I lived through the Christchurch earthquakes, and the military was fantastic at actually making sure that no one was going where they were not supposed to go.
"It gave people of Christchurch a huge amount of confidence that the looting wouldn't be occurring, because it was prevented before it could start."
Listen to the full interview between Terry Copeland and Tova above.
You can also download the full interview on the Tova podcast, and listen on the go.
