Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It gives me pleasure to be able to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and speak to this Appropriation Bill. I would like to be able to get up and talk about something positive but unfortunately we have a job to do. I have police as one of my portfolios and I need to say on behalf of New Zealand First that we are disappointed. We are disappointed that the Government's budget for police continues what we see as a flat-line policy. We are disappointed that this Budget continues what is essentially a funding freeze that has now stretched out to 6 years and as a consequence New Zealand is now seeing a new age of policing that we have seen once before—in the INCIS era when we were having senior police officers telling us that they were going to have a computer catch crooks at night. Today we are seeing the thin blue line get stretched to the point of almost becoming emaciated we are seeing fly-by patrols being talked about and one new phenomenon we are seeing in this Budget as a result of the funding that has been appropriated is policing by warning and police concentrating staff in big centres at the expense of small-town New Zealand and rural communities. It actually does not matter really what the Government says it has done or what this Budget is going to do and it really probably does not matter what New Zealand First has to say. Contrary to what the Minister of Finance has asserted which is that crime has dropped by 16 percent we could say that what we have noticed is a drop in the number of charges that police have lodged and that drop reflects a massive increase in the number of warnings and cautions that police are giving out instead of charging offenders. We could point out the official statistics—and let me assure you it has not been an easy task to get these statistics but we have got them. Those statistics we have obtained show that the percentage of incidents that police have attended that resulted in arrests has plummeted from 16.5 percent in 2007 to 13.5 percent in 2015 that from 2008 the total number of incidents police have attended has risen from 420000 to 525000 in 2015—up 150000 or more than 20 percent—and that of these incidents the number of arrests made during this same period has dropped from 72000 to 69000 in 2015. So we could say from the numbers we now have that incidents are up 105000 and arrests are down 3000 and therefore the Minister of Finance is probably quite right on his figures that on his gerrymandering of the numbers—and whatever instructions have been passed on as a result of the negotiations between the Māori Party and the National Party—crime on those numbers is down. But we do not need to talk about that. All we really need to do is look at the evidence that we are seeing in newspapers daily now about the result in provincial New Zealand and we can find the evidence in those media reports. For example from Radio New Zealand on 23 June Small towns becoming lawless" say business people in Kawakawa Kaikohe and Kaitaia. They say that the flying squad approach is not working and that criminals are getting younger and bolder. Why? Because they know they are not going to get caught. Kaikohe business association spokespeople are saying that there is no police presence in the town. The head of the Kaikohe community board is reported by Radio New Zealand saying that the community is "at the mercy of marauding gangs of youth". They know where the police are and where they are not and when they are not around the youths are "running in and just grabbing what they want and … assaulting the shop keepers while they're doing it." and doing it at liberty which is exactly the same thing that we are seeing reported out of Auckland. But it is not just there. Look at Hastings. Its district council is looking to expand its assisted community patrol initiative at further cost to the Hastings ratepayers by about a million dollars. And this is Hastings. The Mayor of Hastings is Lawrence Yule a man whom the National Party has been having quiet conversations with about replacing Craig Foss because it knows that Lawrence is highly respected and he is a deep-seated National Party member and supporter. He does not take shots like this on behalf of his community just for the love of it because Lawrence has been well-known for not actually wanting to criticise National Governments over the years. But it is not just him. There is Roly Ellis from Tararua—now we have a group of 18 mayors primarily in rural New Zealand provincial New Zealand saying that the big cities are getting the attention. So however this Budget has shaped up and however we sell it you have got to say that the Minister of Police must be grinding her teeth at the back looking at the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister and saying "What the hell are you trying to do to me?" because these frozen Budgets are having a serious impact in rural provincial New Zealand. Have a look at what is being said in Masterton. In Masterton we have got reports of burglars now. "Burglars have struck Masterton more than 11 times in the last week"—this is Monday 13 June—"in some cases stealing from the bedsides of sleeping homeowners." Warning: we know—and it was good to have the Minister of Police confirm that we were correct over here—that burglary is an entry-level crime. It starts at the burglary of an empty house or a house that is not occupied at the time. It progresses to burglary at night when people are home. Then it progresses to voyeurism and then it progresses to an assault when someone wakes up and confronts the burglar or it progresses to a burglar stealing from the bedside of a sleeping homeowner and then the next step that comes in is sexual assault and rape. We know from all the reports from criminologists—not New Zealand First—that burglary is a serious crime if one wishes to interdict the rise and prevent crime and serious crime but we do not see that this Budget is going to do that we do not think these appropriations are going to do that and we certainly do not see that the reports that we are reading repeatedly in the newspaper about the concerns of rural provincial New Zealand are going to address the problems that rural provincial New Zealand is facing. This is a serious article here: "Senior Sergeant Gordon Crawley said in four cases the burglar had entered unlocked houses at night while the owners were asleep and had stolen small portable items such as cellphones and cash."—right beside the sleeping victim. That has got to be a massive alarm and if I was the Prime Minister I would be explaining myself to the rest of Cabinet as to why the police budget has not been increased. Look New Zealand First has a track record and in conjunction with our time in coalition with the National Government and in our time with the Labour Government we did everything we could to increase police numbers but it is not just about increasing police numbers. It is making sure that the police presence is out there and that it is being seen. I want to summarise by saying this. Between 1997 and 2005 I had the opportunity to spend time with law enforcement agencies in the United States: Chicago Los Angeles San Francisco and Arizona. I spoke to of all people Chief William Bratton who was the Los Angeles Police Department chief of police and formerly a very successful chief of police for the New York Police Department. He said that policing has not changed. It is about feet on the beat prevention intervention and enforcement. It is about the three Rs—random patrolling rapid response reactive investigations—and it is about creating a presence in the street and the certainty that if you are going to commit a crime like bashing a shopkeeper on the head and stealing cigarettes you will be caught and you will be arrested and you will be charged and you will be convicted. He also gave one further warning—if I might in the time I have. He said: "The evidence is clear at LAPD that as arrests increase crime decreases." He also said—here is a warning—about when you take police away and you reduce the numbers and they are too thin on the ground: "Stranger policing … results when too few are asked to do too much with too little for too long. Stranger policing creates a disconnection between the police and the public undermining trust particularly in minority [communities]." so increasing the incidence of crime.We in New Zealand First are disappointed. We expected this Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to appropriate more to the police budget but what we did not expect to see with the appropriations that have been made is a thinning out of the number of police in rural provincial New Zealand where they are so desperately needed to ensure the safety of those communities."