Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I think it is probably time we cut to the chase on this. It is interesting reading the Law and Order Committee's report on the police appropriations and I do congratulate the team on its valiant effort. I think one of the things that stands out glaringly in this report is what it does not say. So let us cut to the chase. We hear consistently and continually from this Government that crime is down we are at record lows and the Government is so so satisfied with the wonderful job it is doing in law and order and policing. Well let us look at Statistics New Zealand's statistics which are available on its website right now if the members care to go to nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz. So let us look at the facts on the Government's own website. Crime—total offences for May 2016 have gone up. Let us look at homicide and related offences for May 2016. They have gone up. Let us look at acts intended to cause injury. May 2016—they have gone up by about oh 500. Let us look at sexual assault and related offences. Oops! Guess what? They have gone up. Let us look at dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons. What does that say? Oops! They have gone up by 100. Let us look at abduction harassment and other related offences against a person. What does it say? They have gone up by 90. Let us have a look at robbery extortion and related offences. What does it say? Oops! They have gone up.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just interrupting the member. I have drawn the attention of a number of members tonight to the fact that we are debating the Estimates for the financial year that started less than a week ago. The member has to relate his speech in some way to that rather than totally focusing on the past.RON MARK: What I am demonstrating here is the untruth that has been said in the justification for this appropriation of funding. The untruth that has been said in the appropriations that the police have all the resources they need because crime is going down and policing is effective—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Again I just want to warn the member about using the word untruth" and relating it to things that members have said in this Committee.RON MARK: The point that we disagree with is that the Minister of Police says that these appropriations are sufficient to cater to crime and law and enforcement because under the Government's wonderful management crime is going down. Well these statistics—anyone can go through the statistics right now. If one goes back and looks at—we work on Budgets going forward based on the progress we have made over the past and what we are going to do by implementing the policies that we have announced. But the policies that this Government adheres to by promoting the fiction that it is winning with crime and crime is going down demonstrates quite clearly that it is not. Therefore one can only say that the reason crime is going up is that the police have been flat-lined in their budget for 6 years now. This Budget continues that appalling practice. This Budget does nothing to recognise the fact that in rural provincial New Zealand reports are coming in thick and fast from mayors and in fact from Local Government New Zealand that they are now having to top up the deficiencies in the police budget by implementing their own crime prevention campaigns by installing in some cases a million dollars' worth of equipment and a million dollars' worth of policy in Hastings in particular. The Government's continued ignorance of the fact or continued propensity to ignore the reality of what is happening on the streets is endangering the lives of every New Zealander. This Government's Budget for 2016 is not a Budget that it should be applauding. It is not a Budget that it should be celebrating. If the Government has any cause to reflect that maybe—maybe—it has got something wrong it needs only to go to its own website and look at the statistics. One of the things we have heard consistently as the justification for this funding that has flat-lined—and there is no real great increase in this Budget for the hard-working men and women of the police force—is the Government's statistics. These statistics are proving to be wrong now. We all know that the Government is fudging them by not actually making arrests and therefore recording things as crimes. Even despite all of that the statistics are trending in totally the wrong direction for this Budget.Votes agreed to."