Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. I want to focus in this contribution to the debate on the absolute disarray that the police portfolio is in. Minister Stuart Nash and the coalition Government have gone up and down the country talking about 1800 front-line cops coming in three years. Let's just run through what has been revealed as we've unpicked that over the last six months because it's all very well to talk big—and Stuart Nash is very fond of talking big talking a good game—but let's just actually walk through that.Well first of all almost the moment he got his ministerial warrants Stuart Nash was in the paper talking about Oh maybe we'll have to bring in some foreign imports. We'll go back to the days of bringing in foreign police officers." Well that lasted about 24 hours before Nanaia Mahuta said "Mate we won't be doing that. Last time we tried that it wasn't a very good idea." Also he probably got a call from the Prime Minister who said "We've just run an entire election campaign demonising foreigners. It's probably not the world's greatest idea to start talking about bringing in foreign police officers the moment after you've got your ministerial warrant." So that went out the back door.Then we found out that of the 1800 police 880 of them were actually funded by National—right—through the Safer Communities package. So every single new police officer on the street right now—there's about 350 of them; they're coming through the police college right now they're going out on the street—is not funded by the Labour Government; they're funded by the National Government and that's actually in the Supplementary Estimates we're talking about. So the 881st officer the first genuine new officer they'll probably roll on to the street maybe halfway through 2020 maybe—let's see.Then we revealed through questions in Parliament that of the 1800 only 1100 of them are front line; 700 of them are working on organised crime. Very important work none the less but Stuart Nash has turned up to Parliament and he says—get this colleagues—"A police forensic accountant is a front-line officer." Now look police forensic accountants do very important work.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I'm an accountant and I do important work.CHRIS BISHOP: Michael Woodhouse says he's an accountant and he does work—they do very important work. They're going to help smash the gangs and all the things Stuart Nash talks about. But look when there's a family harm incident when there's a burglary or when there's an assault happening out there I don't reckon you're going to call a police forensic accountant and say "Mate get down there and sort out that incident." I don't think you're going to call that. So I don't think we can call them front-line officers nor can we call the authorised officers—250 of them within the 1800—front-line officers either.What else can we reveal about it? Well the other interesting thing is Stuart Nash sought $515 million through the Budget—we know that from the leaked Cabinet paper that he doesn't want anyone to know about but we know that he did; $515 million—and he said "$515 million—I can do 1800 police in three years." He didn't get that. Then he said "In the alternative if I get $346.4 million I can do the 1800 police in four years." Well do you know how much Grant Robertson gave him? He gave him $298.8 million. So he's short and he admitted this to the Justice Committee. He's short $220 million and what that means is either he's going to have to go back later on next year for more money blowing out their Estimates or secondly—and this is the far more likely scenario actually—the new police are going to come out over five years.Well he says he's got assurances from Grant Robertson that he's got the money. Well the way the Treasury rules work if he's got assurances it's in the Budget documents. If Treasury and Grant Robertson have told him the money's coming well Parliament has to appropriate that—that's the way the Treasury rules work. So someone's doing a bit of misleading and we'll wait and see who it actually is.We know he received advice about getting the new police over five years because he told me he did. And do you know what he said when I asked him about that in the Estimates? I said "What did you do when you received the paper phasing options for 1800 new police over five years?" He said "Didn't even read it." I kid you not. I'll just repeat that for the House. He said to the parliamentary select committee about advice from his own department about his flagship policy—1800 new police in the coalition document—"Didn't even read it". "Not even interested" he said. I said "Hang on a minute Minister this can't be correct. You can't be telling the select committee you didn't even read the paper." "Not even interested" he said.Not even interested—they're not looking up and they're not interested because they know that actually to do that to a parliamentary select committee is treating taxpayers with contempt. For a Minister not to even read a paper—disagree with the advice if you like; Ministers are entitled to do that—is frankly treating Parliament with contempt."