Mark Ron: Budget Debate 
Mark Ron: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13565] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 We can debate whether this is or is not a good Budget for families but I will tell the House one thing: this is not a good Budget for law and order or for the police. This Budget is a wet squib. It does nothing more than address the requests made of this Minister last year. It is a bare minimum allocation and it continues the trend of short-term patch-ups rather than fully addressing the declining state of law and order in this country. 
We can look at methamphetamine and organised crime for example. The Government crows about providing an extra $39 million over 4 years. Funding of $39 million over 4 years does not sound like a big amount; it sounds pathetic. This is the Government’s attempt to police the methamphetamine industry which is rumoured to be worth $400 million per year. How can this Government expect the police force to keep up when gangsters have more money and more resources than our police have to deal with the problem? 
Let us look at what the police asked for in 2002-03—and the document I have here details it. The police asked the Minister in this Government for funding to establish three full-time clandestine laboratory response units and last year this Government gave them two. That was decided despite figures from the police that showed that already they were closing down a massive number of clandestine laboratories and discovering even more and the trends were ominous. They asked for extra funding for an investigative and intelligence unit of 34 officers dedicated to addressing counter-terrorism and organised crime. What did they get? They did not get it last year and the Government crows and expects to be patted on the back for finally starting to deliver on some of those requests—12 months later. 
The problem is what has happened in the intervening period. In that period there has been more P on the streets more drugs more drug-related crime and more victims. Yet this Government applauds itself and pats itself on the back for finally 12 months later coming up with something—a pittance of $39 million over 4 years. 
This Budget highlights the problem with this Government’s attitude to organised crime. It is a commitment from this Government that it will police organised crime whereas the public is crying out for a commitment to destroy organised crime. This Government has an approach of harm minimisation towards gangs as opposed to the people’s call for the elimination of gangs and organised crime. So I ask the Government on behalf of the public where in this Budget is its commitment to destroying gangs? The answer is it simply does not exist. If this Government were serious about dealing with gangs like the Mongrel Mob from Taneatua which graced the front pages of our newspapers this morning and the Nomads who every now and then pop up and terrorise people in Otaki and Levin it would surely make moves towards making them illegal in the first instance and in the second instance funding and resourcing the police so they can eliminate gangs. 
This House is very quick to legislate against international terrorists in New Zealand but still allows gangs to terrorise our people on our own streets. Why has this Government not pushed for a “Suppression of Organised Crime Bill” similar to the Terrorism Suppression Bill? At least that would give the police more power to act against the people who are most responsible for putting drugs on the streets and for all the drug-related crime that ensues. 
Additional funding for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research is something the Government has bragged about; in the Minister’s press release he does so. It is a step in the right direction but the Government needs to note that the institute is under pressure from a number of areas not the least from private firms that are increasingly using the institute’s services to drug test employees. A commitment to destroying organised crime would free up the institute to perform other valuable tasks such as DNA testing which would lead to more criminals being caught convicted and doing more time. 
The Minister crows and congratulates himself that the police budget has broken the much-vaunted $1 billion ceiling for the first time. What a joke what a con. The fact is that if one was simply to adjust the police budget to account for inflation it would have broken the billion-dollar ceiling anyway. This is not something for the Government to congratulate itself on; this is an indictment on the Government that it does not take seriously the problem of crime and law and order—unlike New Zealand First. 
I want to put the facts on the table. New Zealand First does not just come to this House and criticise. We have a policy and it is out there for everyone to see. We are the law and order party in this House and we are the party that says if this Government were serious about dealing with law and order and crime then it would do as we say—it would double the size of the police force and double the size of its budget if necessary to do that. Only then would this Government be able to say that it is genuinely concerned about the safety and security of the citizens on its streets. 
Since we are talking about numbers let us talk about police numbers. The Minister again crows in his press release that police numbers are at a record high. On the back of New Zealand First’s time in Government when we increased the police force by 500 and on the back of New Zealand First’s policy that said we should have twice the number of police that we currently have the Minister’s crowing is rather empty and pathetic. The sad fact is that one will never be able to have a policy of zero tolerance or deal with organised crime or the methamphetamine industry as long as one believes one can just tinker with police numbers. 
The people of New Zealand want to see their streets cleaned up. One of the areas that they want to see cleaned up is immigrant crime. When we first started discussing this in the House people called us racist and xenophobes. Call us what they like—the facts are the facts. Immigrant crime is blowing out disproportionately in just the same way that Maori crime is. The problem is that we are allowed to talk about Maori crime but we are not allowed to talk about immigrant crime because it is politically incorrect to do so. The facts are there: kidnapping extortion murder. Crime of this nature committed by our newly-arrived New Zealanders and foreign students is out of hand and in this Budget the police still do not have the resources to deal with the language and cultural issues that must be dealt with. Some would argue that if we are not going to give those resources then we should not bring the people here in the first place but that seems to be falling on deaf ears. 
Then we have the question of priorities in this Budget. It is interesting that the big issue that I can point to is the quota ticketing regime of this Government. If we look at Labour’s record we see that since it has been in Government quota ticketing revenue has jumped a massive $52.5 million. If we go out on the streets and ask who is being ticketed—and my colleague Edwin Perry has some very interesting answers to some written questions—we find that in some parts of the country the low-income areas of town are being targeted by quota ticketing. How interesting! Those facts will come back to haunt this Government. Quota ticketing is destructive and it is all about revenue collecting. 
The Minister can crow about his projections to put out more tickets this year and collect $112.73 million in revenue on quota ticketing but the damage it is doing internally in the police—with dissent division officers calling other officers “snakes” on “snake patrol” general duties officers getting upset and angry because they do not want to just be dishing out tickets when they could be solving real crimes and the backlash in the courts from citizen jurors—is coming home to roost. 
New Zealand First has a firm policy on this issue and this Government will hear about it. We are not pretenders to the throne of law and order; we are the law and order party. We have good policy unlike National. Its answer to law and order was to replace Kiwi cops with a computer called INCIS. We do not do that. This Government is not taking the message from the public. By continuing to run a quota ticketing system it is undermining the integrity of the police force bringing the police into disrepute doing nothing about road safety at all and diverting resources that should be going into solving real crimes that create real victims. That is the tragedy of this Budget.