Mitchell Mark; Salesa JennyHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Yeah thank you Madam Speaker. The first thing that I noticed sadly in the Budget when it was released in relation to Police was—which was very consistent with this Government—a big knee-jerk reaction with the amount of public media and political pressure that was coming on the Minister and the Government around the rise in gang-related crime fire-related crime ram raids youth and juvenile crime a $500 million package to support the Police. Now under any given circumstance a Government should have expected a big bump and a very strong response from the public if they come out and make a $500 million announcement. They got nothing. There was largely no reporting through the media it was very flat and there was no real response at all from commentators. And the reason for that is because the public have clicked on that what this Government's become very good at is big announcements and splashing money around. They're actually not good at or they can't deliver results. And the reason why I say that is quite simply this: growing Police to match population. I want to acknowledge Chris Cahill and the Police Association because I'm sure this is one of the things that they've been driving they've been talking to the police Minister about and they've been pushing forward because they can see that it would be a useful tool in providing a pipeline of trained officers becoming operational and would allow the Police to be able to plan in the short medium and longer term in terms of a constant flow of officers. So I want to acknowledge Chris Cahill and the association and the work they've done around that.But the fact of the matter is these guys weren't going to do that; they weren't the slightest bit interested in doing it. The only reason why we saw this announcement is because there was enormous political pressure coming on them. And how do we know that they weren't going to do it? Because they didn't cost it. They released a Budget—the Labour members are looking over here. They can't believe it; they can't believe that happened. I'm going to have to show them. There it is: growing Police to match population. It's not costed.Toni Severin: It was an ACT policy.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Was that not ACT policy as well? So was Greg O'Connor aware that they were stealing your policies when he was up making his bizarre speech? He'll have to correct that one. They didn't cost a huge policy. There's a huge fiscal commitment to moving to the ratio. Good? Like Chris Cahill I think it's a good thing. But if you're going to make an announcement like that in the Budget and you've actually been thinking about it and you've been planning for it then you cost it. So the amazing finance Minister Grant Robertson either had this thrust on him at the last minute so they didn't have time to do the work or they just didn't do the work and they didn't cost it. You choose.The other thing that this Government's been very good at doing is politicising our New Zealand Police Service. And the reason I raise this is because it's important because it involves deception and it comes to the second line of the Budget that I'm going to get to and that is around preventing community harm from organised crime with a cross-agency approach. So as an Opposition when we started to highlight the growing number of firearms incidents and the growing number of gang violence just about every day every week we'd see gang members take over public roads and public spaces and threaten and assault members of the public. The Minister came down to the House under oral questions in the House and actually written questions to her office as well. She kept saying in response that the Government's response to that was Operation Tauwhiro. They sold to the country that Operation Tauwhiro was the Police response to the growing gang violence. Operation Tauwhiro had 43 admin officers. Operation Tauwhiro was smoke and mirrors.And the reason why that was uncovered is because police officers who actually in my experience have a ton of integrity—they actually join the police because they want to protect their communities and they want to do the best thing that they can through their public service to make this a safer country. But they have integrity and they didn't like seeing the police Minister standing up and deceiving the public of New Zealand and making them believe that there was a strong response through Operation Tauwhiro to the rising level of gang violence in this country. It was quite simply business as usual. It was quite simply the fact that the front-line police officers going about their normal daily duties have been asked to record any gang interaction any warrants executed any firearms that were recovered—Please record it against Operation Tauwhiro so it actually looks like to the public that we've got a proper dedicated and substantive response to gang violence." That wasn't the case. So they got found out. And by the way the police—trust me when I say this—hate it because they feel like they're being politicised by their own Minister.What else can we have a look at here? The Retail Crime Unit. So as we have ram-raid after ram-raid we have every day violent robberies—Nicola Grigg: Even in Selwyn.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Even in Selwyn. They've been having ram-raids down there. And by the way the saddest human cost in all this is that it scares and terrifies not just the victims of those ram-raids but every single shop owner and every single employee that turns up every day loyally to do their job because they don't know what's going to be coming through the front door—they don't know what they're going to have to face. And there's a massive human cost to that on top of the economic cost. So what does this Government do? What does the Minister do day after day? She comes down to this House when she's being questioned about the ram-raids and she says "Don't worry. We've set up the Retail Crime Unit and the Retail Crime Unit is going to deal with these ram-raids and get on top of it." And what do the public think? The public think "That sounds good. That sounds like a substantive response to a really serious situation in the community." But let's look at the Retail Crime Unit. What is it? It's nine people the Retail Crime Unit—it's not even nine sworn officers. And by the way— Simeon Brown: Do they investigate ram-raids Mr Mitchell?Hon MARK MITCHELL: No they don't investigate ram-raids. We found out through written questions that actually they don't investigate ram-raids. And do you know who felt compelled to actually speak to the media and make a statement about that? It was the head of the Retail Crime Unit because he kept on seeing the Minister stand up in the House saying "We'll deal with the ram-raids through the Retail Crime Unit." He felt compelled that he had to settle the record straight. And by the way I don't want to diminish the role that those nine people have inside that unit. They've got an important role but it's not investigating or taking action against ram-raids; it's quite simply looking at recidivist shoplifters and loss prevention along with Retail NZ. So don't come down to this House and keep trying to convince the public and politicise our police service by putting out Operation Tauwhiro which is smoke and mirrors or a Retail Crime Unit that has nine people. And by the way it had nine people—I think they recruited their last person about a week ago. When it was announced in November they didn't have one person on that unit. I just want to talk very quickly about the appropriation around a tactical response model that actually is a cross-agency model. I want to talk to that quickly and say this: the police service is not there—it is not trained and nor should it be trained to deal with people with mental health issues. They have to be dealt with by a crisis assessment treatment (CAT) team: experienced well-trained dedicated medical professionals that know how to deal with people with serious mental health issues. But what happens right now in this country is our police service is the only 24/7 social service that we have and they have to keep dealing with mental health issues which means that you can have a police officer—Maureen Pugh: What about all the mental health money?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well that's exactly what I'm coming to. So my colleague and friend Maureen Pugh has made a very good point: $1.9 billion into mental health. Where are the CAT units? Where are the CAT units that are working 24/7 that are able to support the police service and when can someone with some acute mental health issues actually be treated immediately by the professionals who have the ability to do that? Not taking police officers off the road so they can't get out there so they can't have a high profile in their communities so they can't stop the rain raids and they can't stop gang members and take firearms; they have to look after and care for mental health patients. Police can sometimes spend their whole shift doing that. So where's the funding? Where's the support to actually back up the police service? I could go on about exactly the same issue around Oranga Tamariki and our juvenile and youth offenders. Our police are not set up to be babysitters. You need to have professionals that are able to respond. There's a lot more that I'd like to go into but I see that my time is up. So thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Vanushi Walters and it's good to see both of you—as well Dr Gaurav Sharma—in cultural attire in recognition of Everest Day."