Hide Rodney: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Hide Rodney: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19490] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 These are the words of the Hon George Hawkins on 2 March 2005: “The Labour-led Government has focused on creating safer communities so that people can live without fear of being a victim of crime.” That is the spin. On the same day he continued: “Police Commissioner Rob Robinson has been given the resources to do the job.” That is what the Minister of Police said but what do we find out? We find that we could throw a stone from his electorate office and hit a block of stores which actually are not untypical in New Zealand right now where neighbours just walk in off the street get what they want for the week and walk out. 
Ron Mark 
: Don’t pay. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: They do not pay; they steal it. The neighbours of George Hawkins’ electorate office have given up ringing the police—and that is why the crime rate is down. Those who do ring the police receive this letter. I want to read it for members. It is from Sergeant Fogarty a hard-working frontline police officer. He wrote to the dairy owner in that block of shops and said: “Due to the sheer volume of complaints and limited resources I am left with no alternative other than to record and file this matter.” That letter was about a perpetrator of multiple crimes. The police have identified him they know where he lives and they know what he looks like. The crime happened within a stone’s throw of George Hawkins’ office. The questions for George Hawkins are these: how come he did not know and how come he is feeding the public this horse manure? When this issue first arose George Hawkins said it was an operational matter and he would not comment. He hid behind Michael Cullen when going into Cabinet. Helen Clark’s response which was typical of her—and is why this country under her has been nicknamed “Helengrad”—was that the sergeant’s letter was “ill-advised”. Why? Because the hard-working sergeant was telling the truth. 
Ron Mark 
: The truth! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes the truth. George Hawkins did not stand up for the police. Why? Because he holds his tenuous position because of the grace of Helen Clark. So the Minister of Police—he shakes his head and agrees—turned round and said he agreed with Helen Clark that Sergeant Fogarty’s letter was ill-advised leaving us in no doubt that he considers the police to be incompetent and that they have the resources. Well the police fight back against rubbish like that and so they should. They came out and told us that in George Hawkins’ patch there are 1167 unallocated cases a fact that George Hawkins found out only yesterday. 
I want to tell people what those unallocated cases are. The dairy owner’s case is not unallocated; it is just filed. An unallocated case is one where someone makes a complaint and it is a serious offence or there is a good chance of catching the person—and that is why the police want to allocate an officer to it. In the dairy owner’s case an officer was not even allocated—the case was just filed. So these are cases the police want to chase up because they know they will catch a perpetrator. 
I will tell George Hawkins and New Zealand the policy that will get the crime rate down. The policy is zero tolerance. There should be a policy of zero tolerance for crime and if that Minister wants to fight crime he should not allow the lawlessness that is occurring in his own backyard. And if the police need more resources he should supply them. The streets of New Zealand should be actively policed; the homes of New Zealand should be actively policed; and the places of work should be actively policed. Perpetrators of crime should be pulled up no matter how small the crime. If someone steals a bottle of Coke the police should be there. They should not be saying that that does not matter because it is just a bottle of Coke because the next week or the week after the criminal learns to take a gun. What we have found is that on George Hawkins’ patch nine rape cases did not have an investigating officer assigned to them. But George Hawkins says speeding is more important. I say this to Mr Hawkins: there were 5000 tickets issued 4 years ago in the Counties-Manukau Police District; there are now 17000.