Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Well that was quite an enlightening speech was it not? Let me take just a couple of points that Mr Bishop mentioned. Mr Bishop said very early on that this Budget—and I quote—delivers for those at the bottom of the heap". This is how Mr Bishop thinks of those who are slightly less fortunate than him—they are at the bottom of the heap. You know you give them a couple of bucks you give them a good kick in the guts and hopefully they keep quiet. Well Mr Bishop what I am seeing in my electorate and what we are hearing around the country is that those at the "bottom of the heap" are actually sick to death of this Government and are looking for a fresh approach to a whole lot of ideas. Then Mr Bishop said—and I quote—"It is important the Government gets its own house in order." Well you would think that after 9 long years the Government would have its house in order but it just does not. It just does not have its house in order and nothing epitomises this more than the Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman having a vote of no confidence against his CEO. It is just unacceptable. Then Mr Bishop said that—dare I say it—"Labour is obsessed with vision and aspiration." Well heaven forbid—heaven forbid being obsessed with aspiration. Well if that is a crime then I am absolutely guilty because I got into Parliament because I have really strong aspirations for New Zealand. We have ideas. We know where we want to take New Zealand. If having a vision for New Zealand is a crime then yet again I am guilty because Labour has a vision Labour has aspiration and we have a whole lot of fresh approaches to the issues that this Government has just not dealt with after 9 long years. Let me take you through some of these. Let me take you through what the Budget said about policing OK. I know that policing is dear to the Deputy Speaker's heart because that is his former profession. What this Budget says and what we do know is that crime is on the increase. We know this and we know that resolution rates are I believe unacceptably low. So Labour has sought to address this. We have listened to what the police have to say and what we have said is that we are going to deliver 1000 more police in our first term. The police said that what they need are 1165 more police. That is what they said would reduce serious crime. The Minister said they are going to have 880 police but in the Budget—and this is the surprising thing—in terms of crime resolution the document says it is not going to increase. The crime resolution rate is going to be 43 percent—this is the aspirational target dare I say—for crime against the person and 13 percent for crime against property. That is the same as it has been last year and the same before and that is the Government's target. What this says is 87 percent of crime committed against property is not going to be solved. It is an admission by this Government that it is just not in control of this. When I look at the other Budget figures—case resolution and support to judicial process—what this is actually talking about is police prosecutions. What we do know is in 2016-17—these are figures from the Budget documents—there were 100000 cases prosecuted and yet this Budget is funding only 90000 cases. What that says is yet again police prosecutors are going to be way underfunded. The courts are going to be clogged. People are going to be in our prisons on remand for a hell of a lot longer. And what does that do for our justice system? Absolutely nothing.In the Budget it says in 2016-17 there were 170000 prisoners escorted and/or held in custody and yet this Budget is funding only 140000. What is going to happen when more police come on the beat? Resolution rates stay the same but the Government says we are funding 30000 fewer prisoners escorted and/or held in custody. It is just not realistic. There is no aspiration here. There is no vision here and it demands a fresh approach. That is exactly what needs to happen. Last year the number of crimes the victimisations increased by 11568. I know that probably means nothing but let us put it into a per week figure: 222 more crimes last year than the year before. Yet there is very little funding to solve these crimes. What we are seeing at the moment is that our communities are really concerned about the lack of policing. They are concerned about a lack of community policing. They are concerned about the police stations in their local area closing down and not being open and the terrible thing is that in the Budget the capital expenditure dropped by 30 percent or $12.7 million. What sort of signal does this send? Well let me tell you. What it means is those kiosks those 100-odd kiosks that were closed around our communities—they are not opening. The police station that closed—was it Porirua Mr Faafoi?Kris Faafoi: Well we had two.STUART NASH: Two closed. The two police stations that closed in Porirua—they are not going to be reopening. The more police that are coming on to the beat supposedly—they are not going to be in our community. They are going to be elsewhere. In fact the interesting thing is the Budget said last year there were 120000 hours of foot patrol and what the Budget says for next year is there are going to be between 120000 and 140000 hours. So the bottom target is exactly the same.The Minister says she has been listening to her communities. She has not because if the Minister of Police had been listening to her communities then first and foremost she would put as many police on the beat as the police say they need. They said they needed 1165 more police to put a dent in serious crime. They have been given 880 police. It is simply not enough. What the police documents showed themselves—these are the police documents; they are not my figures—was that despite recent seizures of methamphetamine the increase in supply and the drop in price is rampant. There is more meth and it is cheaper. And you know what? The police cannot do anything about this because they just have not got the resources. At the moment there are 195—195—police whose primary responsibility is the organised crime squads. In my district which goes from north of Gisborne to Porangahau—this is my policing district—there are five officers whose sole responsibility it is to go after the gangs that are peddling this death in our communities. And that is when they have not been seconded to other duties. It is simply not enough. It really is not.Mr Robertson talked about the fact that health funding for population has dropped. We know health funding for education has dropped and funding for police has also dropped. When the Government took over there was one officer for every 485 New Zealanders. Now there is one officer for every 526 New Zealanders and the number of police that this Minister has said the Government is going to provide does not even get us down to a 1:500 ratio. It is simply not good enough that after 9 years of crime increasing after 9 years of ratios increasing the Government has finally decided it is going to do something about this. The funding for police numbers has to be an ongoing process. You cannot just grow a whole lot more when crime is rampant or when meth is out of control or when the gangs are controlling our communities. It has to be done on an ongoing basis and I am afraid the Government has failed in this area. There are not enough police to keep our communities safe.I have been doing street corner meetings around my electorate for a year and a half and there are two big issues that come up and it does not matter where in the electorate I go No. 1 is the lack of police resource. People are really concerned about the lack of police resource and what is happening. No. 2 is actually bottled water Dr Smith. People are absolutely incredulous as I am that in fact we can give our water away for free to someone who then sells it to make a profit. When Dr Smith says "Oh well it is only a small fraction of the water we pull out of the ground." it does not matter. It is not about supply and demand. It is an economic argument. It is Economics 101—we know that if something has no price it does not have a value. If it does not have a value there is absolutely no incentive to maximise its worth or optimise opportunities.For the last 30 seconds I just want to say that the Budget just does not deliver for policing in our communities. There is not enough here. There have been cuts to road funding. There have been cuts to the targets and we all know that stopping speeding drivers saves lives. I am just very concerned that what we are seeing here is not a Budget that has any aspiration and not a Budget that has any vision. It needs a fresh approach and under Andrew Little the next Budget will deliver on that. Thank you very much."