Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): As a white middle-class rugby-playing beer-drinking male I completely agree with the Minister for Women on the travesty that is violence against women and children in this country. But what I am absolutely positive about as well is there is an equal travesty here and that is the lack of resolution for such crimes; I am told that one of the reasons why a lot of women do not come forward is that they are not taken seriously and they know that this will not be dealt with by the police in an acceptable way. The police are at their wits' end on how to solve crime—on how to deal with the sort of travesty the sort of crime the sort of disgrace that that Minister talked about.Let me talk about the police for a second: 60 percent of them—60 percent of police—say that they cannot deliver on the promises they make to the public 55 percent of them say they have too much work-related stress and 60 percent of them say that their views and their opinions are not listened to. But there is another side to that: 88 percent said that they are committed to their communities and the work they do and 80 percent said that they are committed to the police. What we have here is a group of highly professional men and women who want to do what is right and who know that they should be spending a lot more time solving the crimes that that Minister talked about—but they simply have not got the resources to do this. They have now been told they have got to investigate every single burglary. That means an extra 8000 burglaries every single year. But what we have also got is a Minister of Police who told the House today that success for her is providing the funding for the police to do their job. What I can also say is that the Minister signed off on a strategic plan for the next 4 years—she signed off on this in May of this year—that said no more police. So crime is increasing the type of crime is increasing people are becoming more and more disenchanted and the Commissioner of Police himself has said I want you to do 40 percent more work around solving burglaries." but the number of police has not increased at all and it is not forecast to. We simply cannot keep asking the police to do more with less.Then we had a bill before the House last night that talked about user-pays. Certain groups like kindergartens and schools which we require under law to get employees vetted—when they have this undertaken they must pay the police force. The police force is going from a model where it is about the community to—now—a model where it is about money. That is a fundamental change in philosophy. We need to get it back to where the police are there to serve our community in every single aspect of the work they do not a user-pays system; that is not what we expect from our police force in New Zealand.That same Minister Judith Collins said in 2011 that there must be harsher punishments for those who assault police. I think—well I hope—every single person in this House would agree with that. But 5 years on the same police officer who prompted the call from that very same Minister was knocked out by a rogue—not a rogue punch; she was knocked out and when she was on the ground unconscious she was punched again. This lady's attacker received what—3 years in jail? No. Maybe 2 years in jail? No. This guy received a community service sentence—of 300 hours. That is an absolute disgrace.What we want is for a Minister to stand up and back their officers—for a Minister to say "If you assault a police officer in this manner then you are going to go to jail. Anyone who does this to a police officer is off to jail." because it is totally unacceptable that someone who perpetrates a crime like this against an officer does not go down. I think that is a disgrace.Just to sum up what we need to see in this country is more money to provide more police in our communities so they can solve the crime that that Minister Louise Upston was talking about; so they can prevent crime; so they can work within the community; and so they can deliver on the expectations of New Zealand. We all want that; that Minister over there the Minister for Women Louise Upston highlighted the problems we have got. We need more police in New Zealand now. Thank you very much."