Mark Ron: Budget Debate 
Mark Ron: Budget Debate 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
It would be nice to be able to say that it gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in this Budget debate but I guess for the men and women who patrol our streets at night there is very little in this Budget to give them pleasure. In recognition of those people I am wearing a police tie here in the Chamber today to demonstrate New Zealand First’s commitment to the police force and the focus we are giving in their support to scrutinising this Government’s books. New Zealand First takes the policing of our nation personally. It is not about politics it is quite personal because people like myself our deputy leader Peter Brown and our president Doug Woolerton all have siblings in the police force. We have a lot of family in the police force and we hear first hand off the ground the problems they are facing. 
For a start I will congratulate a couple of people on the Labour benches on receiving their Oscars. The first one is Rick Barker. He was nominated by the Mongrel Mob for his unforgettable part as a freedom-fighter in the political hit  
“Home Alone Detention” 
 and for the outstanding performance in his portfolio that saw people released onto the streets after being sentenced to jail for violent crimes. As a reward he got promoted. Boy some of us do not understand how things work over on that side of the House. I can name a number of people who deserve the job far more than that hapless character but he has an Oscar and he should take it home to show his folks. 
The other award is the one that Winston Peters gave Lianne Dalziel who keeps her head in the sand and ignores one of the major problems facing the police force today—a problem recognised by everybody except her her Government and her Minister of Police. That Minister got an amazing award from Winston Peters for—actually I think he should have got his award for outstripping the growth performance of the Minister of Finance. George Hawkins along with the Minister of Justice has produced higher growth figures in crime than the Minister of Finance has managed to achieve with his much-lauded economic control. 
Here is the real tragedy: despite the crime figures we are seeing and the increase in violent crime in particular nowhere in this Budget do I see anything to address a problem that is growing in Auckland and is now being talked about on the streets of Auckland. What is the dilemma that is facing our bobbies on the beat? It is escalating immigrant crime and it is the side effect of an open-door immigration policy that lets every Tom Dick Harry and Osama bin Laden into the country. People over that side of the Chamber put their hands over their ears and eyes and say: “Oh racists! Xenophobes! You are just whipping up public fear.” They should open the  
New Zealand Herald  
of 10 May and look at what the police are saying. For God’s sake I just wish that this Minister of Police this Minister of Finance this Prime Minister and this Minister of Immigration would read a paper! If they talked to the police what would they hear? For the benefit of those who do not listen the article states: “Asian students in Auckland are falling victim to kidnap and extortion crimes at the rate of one a week. … Police believe this is the tip of the iceberg and say many more similar crimes are not being reported by Asians who tend to shy away from dealing with the authorities for cultural reasons.” But some say that that is not happening! “Detective Inspector Gavin Jones the Auckland city district crimes manager yesterday linked a rise in kidnappings to the growing number of Asians in the city.” Hello! Is anybody listening out there? He saidextortion— 
Government Member 
: No one! 
RON MARK 
: Well the Government is not listening. He said extortion-type crimes amongst students were a big issue for Auckland police: “Reported kidnappings in the district have risen in the past three years”—that is Labour’s term of Government—“from three to 10 to 23 so far this year.” And there is more: “Mr Jones said kidnapping was a ‘crime more commonly committed by Asians on Asians’.” 
We are talking about a rising immigrant crime wave. The police are in the front line dealing with it and where in this Budget is George Hawkins’ focus? He is out to ticket everyone going to church. He has determined that the police will rake in $90.6 million in traffic fines. I was astounded that a quota sales system was not set up like the Ministry of Fisheries one where we would tender out the quota on the road put out the old net and trawl them in.George Hawkins would tender a quota for big trucks a quota for little nannies going to church and a quota for parents going to footy on a Saturday so that they could hook in all that money. 
What sort of money is this Government in its lousy Budget giving the police to deal with this rising immigrant crime wave? It is $17.49 million over and above the amount last year. That is pathetic; that is lousy; that is cheap. But oh no he sits there and the Minister of Finance reads out very seriously that the Government is putting in another $10 million to establish funding for two specialist teams that will concentrate on methamphetamine. Hello! What a surprise New Zealand—the teams already exist! They are not new; they have been operating for years; they are the AOS and the STG. That is baloney; that is flim-flam. It might well be that some money from that lousy $17 million increase is being slipped off to one side to prop up a task that has been going on but it is nothing new. It is smoke and mirrors. I would give George another Oscar for acting that one out. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: According to Speaker’s ruling 6/1 (Supplement) the member must not refer to another member by his first name. Please use his full name or portfolio. 
RON MARK 
: I would give George Hawkins another Oscar and another one because he is known. But this is deception—those teams already exist. The Minister of Finance has just told us that they are new teams; they are not. 
Where is the police focus going to be? It is certainly not going to be on relieving the pressure on those new New Zealanders who came to this country thinking that it was a safe society. It absolutely astounds me that this Government is saying: “Oh we are going to focus on safety in the community and we welcome in all these new New Zealanders. They are going to help build our economy but we don’t give a stuff if they get kidnapped murdered maimed bashed up and chopped up with meat cleavers because immigrant crime does not exist. Just because we are getting more immigrants in here doesn’t mean that this new crime profile actually exists.” 
Well it does exist. It has not been addressed in this Budget at all. It is more of the same: “Hear no evil see no evil pretend it will go away.” But it will only get worse—as the police officers in Auckland have already been brave enough to say. The crime has almost become a standing joke at the Auckland District Court where last month after dealing with his third such offender in a week a judge asked if it were “Chinese kidnapping season”. 
Dail Jones 
: That’s a judge! 
RON MARK 
: That is a judge. I have seen nothing from this Government to address that problem. Its own statistics—and it took a long time to get those out—show that the only figures it keeps on ethnicities are on Maori. Get that John Tamihere! Definite statistics are kept on the following ethnic groups: not known other Maori Indian and Negro. Why is that? This Government does not keep definite statistics on Filipinos or Koreans and I do not understand that. When I went searching through places of birth the statistics showed that the violent crime statistics of people born in China have rocketed by 297 percent in 5 years. 
Hon Member 
: How much? 
RON MARK 
: By 297 percent in 5 years! If members look at the statistics of people born in Hong Kong they will see that theirs have rocketed by 100 percent in 5 years. If we contrast those locations with Northland we see only a 13.9 percent increase in violent crime. Kiwi increases are way down immigrant crimes are rocketing and this Budget completely ignores the problem. The money going into that vote will be used for fishing for traffic tickets on the road as Mum and Dad go to footy on a Saturday. That is wrong. 
Ninety-two percent of people in this country told this Government to focus on violent crime serious crime and tougher law-and-order legislation. What do we have instead? We have Rick Barker letting violent criminals out into the street on deferred sentences and he did not even know he had done it. That member has had 4—coming up 5 and going on 6—years and we have not seen anything despite 9 years of promises about what he would do when he got here. The situation has only got worse and it is not going to get better with a Budget for the police like this one.