Fol­low­ing the mur­der of three peo­ple on Sat­ur­day night—two with­in his Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy—Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said he is deeply con­cerned about the cur­rent spate of killings.

He added that the gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) could have helped curb vi­o­lent crime and po­ten­tial­ly pre­vent­ed some of the re­cent mur­ders.

The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment) Bill col­lapsed in the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 27, de­spite be­ing passed in the Low­er House ear­li­er that month. Sev­er­al In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against the bill, re­sult­ing in its fail­ure.