Mark Ron: General Debate 
Mark Ron: General Debate 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 This is fortunate. We move up into the slots due to other people’s disorganisation but no doubt they will get their act together. I do not mind that they do not because we are in election year. But— 
Jill Pettis 
: It is not our call. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is somewhat unusual and I want to try to traverse it a little bit carefully in order not to breach Speakers’ rulings and a tradition in this matter. It is my understanding that there is a party with only one member the Maori Party that does not have a whip to keep it up to date. I wonder whether a messenger could be sent to Ms Turia’s room to let her know that she has twice now missed her call. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that. It is a simple issue. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Well having said it was a simple issue I will take some more advice on it. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: When the member did not take the call because the member is not here I sought the call before my colleague in New Zealand First. On the schedule National is in the 10th spot. I am here and I did seek the call. But you did give the call to Mr Mark. He also sought the call but I think I was on my feet earlier. You might not have noticed but I did go for the call. But he is No. 12 on the list. So I seek your indulgence as to who should actually get the call. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I have actually given the call. But— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No I do not need any more assistance. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It is a different point of order altogether. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Well I want to deal with the previous point of order and the member may then raise his point of order. We have a list here which I am following very closely. If members had taken the hint we would not have got into this. They did not take the hint. I gave the call to not the only person on his feet seeking it but the one in my clear vision and I apologise to Mr Tisch for that. But I have given the call to Ron Mark on that one and we are not about to use any resources of the House or any messengers to whip the Maori Party member. So that is where that lies. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Our Standing Orders are quite clear that a member may not refer to the absence of another member. It is quite wrong and indeed a serious breach of our Standing Orders for Mr Mallard to try to do that under the guise of a point of order. That was very unruly certainly a clear breach of our Standing Orders and very unfair on the member who may not be here. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes the absence of a member was referred to. I took it as the member trying to be helpful in the situation but I thank the Hon Ken Shirley for raising it. 
RON MARK 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For your information and to clarify and assist the House I can inform the House that New Zealand First has just had communication with the member concerned and the member has expressed that she will not be speaking in this debate so I leave it to you and the whips to sort this out. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member. 
RON MARK 
: I recall in 1996 when I came to this House as a member of the New Zealand First caucus seeing members on the Opposition benches frothing at the mouth foaming about and telling the Government of the day what they were going to do about crime and law and order. In fact one of the key speakers in that Opposition team was the man now known and referred to as the Hon George Hawkins. Mr Hawkins in those days lambasted the Government for the lack of resources for the police and in fact in one particularly famous speech he accused the Government of under-resourcing the police because they were not able to paint out the scratches on their vehicles. Indeed he said they were having to use Twink to cover the scratches on their vehicles. 
Well a lot of water goes under the bridge and eventually a man who spent 9 years planning to be in Government to be the Minister to implement a National Crime Authority—something that he just dismissed as a possibility yesterday when it was called for by one of the other Opposition members—is now the Minister is now totally in control of resourcing for the police is now the one person the police go to for resources and to get the priorities and what are we seeing? Today we see a crisis of confidence in the police from the public. Today we have a situation where members of the public now know that if they have an emergency they can dial 111 and get a taxi. They were then told that if they dial 111 and people do not listen to them they should scream louder down the phone. Then they were told that if they dial 111 they would be told where the nearest police station was and they could walk to get there. 
What is at the heart of all of this? The heart of all of this is the priorities and the resources this Government gives to the police. We have known for quite a long time that there has been dissension and division in the police ranks with general duties officers calling the other lot “snakes”—the “snakes” are out there issuing their quota tickets. The Government sits by and plays Pontius Pilate and says that it is a police issue and the police determine the priorities. From reading the 2003-04 supplementary questionnaire to the examination of the estimates in the baseline update reports and the comments we now see there are specific requests in there from the Commissioner of Police asking this Government for specific resources. 
What did he say? He said that the Auckland area was failing in its ability to respond to emergency calls with 45 to 55 percent reaching the standard of 10 minutes. He asked for 100 extra officers just to deal with responses to emergencies. What did he get? He got one-third of that figure over 3 years. Yet this Minister has the audacity to sit here and tell the House that he has no control over the police resources or where they go and what they do. We now know that that is not true. 
In a report written for the Minister we now know that the police have said as far back as 2002 that their ability to deploy the resources to meet the emerging threats to law and order are now being heavily interdicted by the Government which ring-fenced resources for specific tasks only. We also now know from that same report that the Government has put the primary focus not on providing general duties officers to fight crime and promote law and order but the Government has put the focus on providing traffic cops. 
How do we know that? We know that because this report stated at that time that of the 375 newly funded sworn staff allocated by strategic priority the main beneficiaries had been road policing—285 positions. That says it all. That says that the Minister is manipulating how the police operate the Government is dictating where the resources go and the Government is emphasising a policy of road safety over and above all else. Today we get a bizarre statement from a police officer saying that no detectives are being pulled from serious investigations. The Government should tell that to a woman who has had her house invaded and burgled. Does this Government not have any idea of how personal a burglary is and how serious it is to people? Clearly not!