Prosser Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 12 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15850. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I rise to take a call in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement which welcomed the New Year and invited the nation and this House to have confidence in him and his Government. We politely decline this invitation. We decline because confidence in this Government is not warranted as is evidenced by its quite woeful track record with regard to law and order and the parlous state of our beleaguered police force. Flat budgets undermanning under-resourcing and diminishing morale—that is what this John Key - led Government has brought to the thin blue line.Our boys and girls in blue are being asked to do ever more and more with ever less and less. Crime is falling they proclaim from the benches opposite. The reality as we all know is that crime is rising but reporting is falling. People are simply not bothering to report crimes because they know that the police do not have the resources to be able to respond. Back-office staff are being cut and real numbers of officers on the front line are falling away. People are leaving the police in droves demoralised and lured by the promise of actual decent money across the Tasman. Good police officers are heading for Australia while crime rates on this side of the Ditch soar unreported and New Zealanders live in fear in their own homes and on their own streets.It is not good enough. We need to be spending more on the police not less. We need to be recruiting more officers not fewer and we need to be paying them decent money not the insulting pittance that this miserly Government with its warped sense of priorities appears to believe is somehow adequate. And we are invited to have confidence in the Government at the same time—confidence! You can have confidence in John Key’s Government—Tui billboard!The current trial of a man charged with the murder of Christchurch woman Mellory Manning is deeply disturbing. It has exposed a dark underbelly of criminality and gang culture in Christchurch. How has this been allowed to fester and spread? Although this case dates back to 2008 the brutality of the killing has shocked the New Zealand public. What the public wants to know is this: do we have the police numbers and resources to deal effectively with the menace of gang culture? Well we do not. Years of underfunding and diminishing morale have seen to that. But need them we do because gangs do pose a serious threat to ordinary law-abiding citizens. They present a clear and present danger to the authority of the law because of their connection to prostitution drugs and criminality in general.There are no grounds for complacency. This problem is not going to go away all by itself. Gangs are a corrosive influence and they attract vulnerable young people into their net. And as the economy continues to shrivel and die under the mismanagement of this Government this problem will only continue to get worse. This would be an opportune time for the Government to reassure the public that it regards gang criminality as a high priority and that it will ensure that the police have all they need in order to tackle the problem. The Minister of Police should give a clear and direct statement of what steps are being taken now in regard to dealing to gangs. The public is waiting for action not indifference or weasel words.We have taken the step in this House of passing a law banning gang patches in Government buildings. It was a fine member’s bill which we were very pleased to assist the Government in carrying over the line but it was only a beginning. This Government still dallies with being soft on crime and it still requires our encouragement.A New Zealand First Government will rid this country of gangs altogether. We are strong on law and order and we will resource the police properly in order to enable them to do the job that we all expect of them. State Governments in South Australia Western Australia Queensland Victoria and New South Wales have shown us that outlaw gangs can be banned outright and our own gang patch bill has given us a template by which such gangs can be identified and classified. Banning the gangs will not be in the too-hard basket for a New Zealand First Government. A New Zealand First Government will be a Government in which people can have confidence unlike this sorry bunch across the Chamber whose days are surely numbered.We applaud the greater use of advanced technology such as smartphones and network devices that allow officers on the front line to work more quickly and more effectively but we do not accept that more technology can be a substitute for boots on the ground. Only this week we heard that the Government is considering trialling the use of body-mounted video cameras for front-line police such as police in the United Kingdom are already using. These may be a valuable tool but we have to question whether at $1300 apiece the millions of dollars involved might not be better spent on more patrol cars more ammunition for live firing training or simply more sworn officers available to the front line. Cameras to help secure convictions will be of little use if there are not enough officers to respond to call-outs or if there are no available patrol cars to enable them to get to those call-outs.The priorities of a Government in which people can have confidence must reflect the realities of our modern world and address the concerns of ordinary people. A New Zealand First Government will provide proper and adequate funding and resourcing to the police. We will bring an end to sole-charge police stations. We will bring an end to the single manning of patrol cars. We will address the concerns of the people and allow the police to do their job and protect us all. We will end the gang menace and make people safe again in their own homes and on the streets of our towns and cities. That is what a Government must do if it desires people to have confidence in it. In this Government we do not. Thank you.