McClay Todd: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 13 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7801. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement and to follow the Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce. What a wonderful outlook the Minister has shown New Zealanders is in store for them over this coming year. Before I get into some of the detail of what a hard-working Government we are I say to Minister Joyce that we almost do not have to say that any more. After 4 years and another election New Zealanders have recognised that they have a hard-working Government. They told all of us a year ago they wanted a hard-working Government—[ 
Interruption 
]—and guess what members opposite? They voted for a hard-working Government. 
Mr Speaker I want to wish you the very best as this is the first time I have spoken in the House this year and say I look forward to working with you. But I also want to pay a particular compliment to the former Speaker Dr The Rt Hon Lockwood Smith and to thank him for his many many years of service to this House and to New Zealand and New Zealanders. I look forward very much to hearing from him later on this afternoon. What a sad occasion it will be for members opposite that Dr Smith is making his last speech and leaving the House. No longer will they feel that they should take points of order in question time asking him to protect them. I am grateful that he offered them little protection in his time as Speaker. 
What I want to do is touch on two things that I think are very important. The first is an excellent announcement today by the Minister of Police the Hon Anne Tolley around supporting police more and giving our police force the tools to get on and do what New Zealanders want them to do and that is to police. That is a fantastic announcement. But firstly to set the scene what has happened over the last 4 years that we have been the Government? Before we took office I remember standing on the campaign trail in the Rotorua electorate. At the time that seat was held by a former Labour member of Parliament who is no longer in this Parliament. We were talking about crime and every statistic that came out showed New Zealanders that the last Labour Government lost track of what it should be doing and that crime statistics were getting worse. We heard all the reasons for this: it was difficult and you know it was the police’s fault and everything else. 
What I can say is that this Government has backed the police force and given it the tools. In the fiscal year of 2010 we saw a 7 percent decrease in reported crime throughout New Zealand—7 percent decrease throughout the whole of New Zealand. After everything Labour said to us previously when in Government—that it was on top of it and it had a lot to do with the moon and the stars and the weather and so on. But was that a one-off? In the 2011-12 fiscal year there was a 5.9 percent drop in reported crime throughout New Zealand. Is that important? Well this is about New Zealanders being safer in their homes and in their streets. It is about the police being able to get out and do what it is we want them to do to police effectively giving them the tools and making sure they know the Government fully supports them in their job and for them to be arresting those who choose to break the law and holding them to account on behalf of all law-abiding New Zealanders. 
This reduction in crime is a wonderful thing. I want to look at my electorate for a moment. In 2011 there was a 3.4 percent decrease in crime. You have to go back a long way before we came to Government to find any other decrease in crime in the Rotorua electorate. In 2010 there was a 5 percent decrease in crime. That is about 9 percent accumulatively over those 2 years. And impressively there have been drops in burglaries illicit drugs weapon offences robberies and extortion. Robberies and extortion are down by about 11.5 percent in that period of time. Burglary is down 10.7 percent and drug offences are down 8.4 percent. That means that all over New Zealand thousands of law-abiding citizens have not become victims of crime because of the work the police are doing. That is thousands of people in New Zealand who are able to get on with their jobs and not worry about what those who decide to commit crimes are doing in their homes or in their streets. This has happened in part because of the great support that the Government and our Minister have given the police but also because of the wonderful job our policemen and policewomen do every single day on our behalf. They do a fantastic job under extremely difficult circumstances. 
Last year the Bay of Plenty police force’s combined drug campaign resulted in 178 arrests 27000 cannabis plants destroyed and many methamphetamine dealers and traders arrested. Police confiscated—this is frightening—26 firearms that were held illegally and could have been used to commit offences. That means that in the Bay of Plenty we are safer because of the job this Government has done—it has given the police the tools they need—and because of the hard work the police do on our behalf every day. I know that my constituents realise this and like this and support our police force and they want us as a Government to hold criminals to account. In October last year I was given the honour to come and speak at the inaugural meeting of the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s branch in Rotorua. It was a large room and it was full to overflowing with people who have had enough; who said that they support what the Government is doing they support our police force and they believe that those who commit crimes must be held to account. Peter Bentley who heads that up in Rotorua is doing quite an amazing job. 
So the announcement today—what is this about? See the Government has got a plan to allow the police and to allow other civil servants to get on and do the job that we want them to do not to bind them or hold them back with unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. What I want to say is that the work that the Minister Anne Tolley has done over the last year since she became Minister of Police is fantastic and is paying dividends today. One of our priorities this term is to deliver Better Public Services and her announcement today was that there will be 6500 front-line police officers—and you have got to remember that over the last 3 years we have delivered 1000 more policemen to the front line which was an election pledge on our behalf and different from what the last Government said it would do. It said it would have more policemen and actually could not deliver on that. Well we did. We delivered more policemen and policewomen on the front line. 
For 6500 of them the announcement today said that they will receive smartphones by mid-2014 and 3900 staff will receive tablets. And the reason this is important is that it will free up half a million hours of police time for them to do their job on the front line—half a million hours of extra time when our police can be out in our communities in our streets finding those who commit crimes against some of the most vulnerable people in our society and holding them to account. This is wonderful. In the Bay of Plenty that is 41526 hours that will be saved in that district each year—41000. So what you will hear at the next election is a Labour Opposition complaining whining and running up and down the country trying to scare hard-working law-abiding New Zealanders that this Government has not got a commitment to the police force. But not only did we increase the number of policemen on the front line; we have been able to free up half a million hours for them to do their jobs. 
Do you remember those stories in the newspaper where mums and dads were saying they called a policeman but could not get through to him because he was stuck in the back office doing paperwork? Well this is half a million hours out on our streets in my electorate and other electorates. In the Bay of Plenty we are giving our policemen 41000 extra hours. Is that important? Well when I get the chance to go and talk to them and thank them for the job that they are doing on our behalf in Kawerau in Rotorua in Murupara and in other parts of my electorate they tell me that what they enjoy doing most is being out in the community making sure people are safe and arresting criminals. This Government has given them yet another tool to get out and to do that. 
I want to say again to the Minister and our Prime Minister thank you on behalf of our police force for deciding that we will support it come thick or thin. Is that not such a change from what happened over 9 years of a Labour Government when the police felt unwanted and unused and were put in a back office to do their work? Law and order is a great priority for this Government. It is something that you will hear much more about but I give you a pledge on behalf of myself as a local MP and on behalf of the Government that we will continue to do everything possible to make New Zealanders safer and we will do everything possible to support our police force. 
I look forward next week to the Law and Order Committee coming forward and perhaps sending back to this House a very important piece of legislation another great tool for our police and another great way for us to make New Zealanders safer. I see members opposite nodding. They want to support this very important bill to ban the wearing of gang insignia in all Government buildings throughout New Zealand. This will get on top of gangs which do nothing but intimidate commit crime harm vulnerable New Zealanders and sell drugs to our children. In the words of a member of the New Zealand First Party we do not fear them. We want to give the police tools to make sure that they know what they are doing and they can get amongst them disrupt them arrest them and where absolutely necessary send them to jail.