6. Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this
to the Minister of Police
When she said “New Zealand streets are safer with the addition of 384 extra frontline police officers deployed since December 2008”, how many of those 384 new police officers were part of the third tranche of 407 police officers that the previous Labour Government had funded for deployment within the 2008-09 year?
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of State Services) Link to this
I am advised that the premise of the member’s question is incorrect. There was not a third tranche of 407 police officers.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
Does she think that the people of Mana will feel any safer because of her claims of additional police across the country, given that police documents tabled in this House show their police district will actually have 46 fewer front-line police officers by the end of next year than it did when the third tranche of 1,000 additional police across the country came into force in mid-2009—information obtained from the Minister’s own department?
The answer is the same as that to the question that the member asked the other week. The fact is that compared with when this Government came into office, there will be more police officers throughout New Zealand: 600 additional police officers.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
I seek leave to table two documents from the New Zealand Police showing that the crime rate in the Kapiti-Mana district, where police numbers are dropping, increased by 6.5 percent between 2008-09 and by a further 0.2 percent in the year to July 2010.
Mr SPEAKER
Hon Dr Nick SmithHon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
I have just been accused by that member of misrepresenting the facts, and I take offence at that.
The member knows that those sorts of interjections go across the House all the time. I heard the member sitting right beside him use some very unparliamentary language to describe something that the Minister of Finance was saying a short while ago. It was far more offensive that what the member interjected just now.
If the member wishes to ask a supplementary question, he will just do that. He was not accused of being a liar.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
Does she believe that New Zealand streets are safer, when she hears reports from a Hastings sergeant, Kevin Stewart, that his section is attending fewer jobs due to the workload and a lack of staff and that “even as recently as six years ago, I was arresting 100 people a year. Now the top arrest rate in my section is 50 a year.”?
Of course, the Minister is always concerned if a police officer feels that way. What the Minister is doing about it is putting tens of millions of dollars of extra money into the New Zealand Police. By the end of our first term in office there will be 600 additional front-line staff, including 300 in Counties-Manukau, to make the streets safer for our nation.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
Does he believe that New Zealand streets are safer, considering the comments of a police supervisor: “if the public knew the real numbers of GDB”—general duties branch—“staff policing the streets they would be shocked.”, and the comments of Christchurch sergeant Craig Prior: “We are not giving the public an acceptable level of service the way the GDB is run now.”?
Those comments are being made, I think, with the complete lack of awareness of the tens of millions of dollars extra that the Minister has put into the police service, and the fact that within the end of our first term there will be 600 additional front-line officers. The police know that they have a Minister who will support them strongly.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
How can she claim that New Zealand streets are safer, when police resources are seemingly so stretched that Auckland resident Pamela Percivalle called 111 late on Friday night, when she was at home alone, to report at least two men were banging on her windows and doors and apparently trying to break into her house, but no police officer was sent to her aid because she sounded “very calm”?
I know that the Minister of Police was shocked that that happened. She has raised the matter with the police and demanded an immediate report from them. The Minister is concerned that that might happen, because we simply do not want our Police Commissioner to appear before a select committee, under a National Government, and say that if people dialled 111 they had to scream to get help, which they had to do under Labour.
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
I seek leave to table a data table from the New Zealand Police showing that the third tranche of the 1,000 additional front-line police promised and funded by the previous Labour Government totalled 407, and came into force during the 2008-09 fiscal year. It is from the Minister’s own department.