Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14421] 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I am grateful to colleagues that I have been given a second shot at that mob over there. I am very grateful because like all Labour members when I get a chance to get those members and the odd New Zealand First member in the cross hairs I enjoy the opportunity. It is a bit like shooting ducks on the water. 
Brian Connell 
: That’s illegal. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I know and we would never do that. And I would never liken National Party members to ducks—maybe a few other animals but never to ducks. 
Some mention was made of comparative crime figures. I remind members of what this Government’s appropriations have done. I will deal with facts here of course not unattributed sources. In respect of Mr Locke’s comments about Mossad maybe some of Mr Mark’s unattributable sources have something to offer there as well! Let us look at the crime rate figures. Violent crime rose 77 percent in the period 1990 to 1999 and has risen just 15 percent since 1999. Let us look at overall recorded crime which rose 16.6 percent from 1990 to peak in the calendar year 1996 at 477596 recorded offences. Members over there do not like the facts; they prefer ghostlike sources but we will give them the facts anyway. Since 1999 total recorded crime has risen just 1 percent and is now 35000 offences—7.4 percent—lower and the crime rate per head of population is 13.8 percent lower than it was in 1996. Unfortunately—and I do apologise to the Opposition for the humiliation that those statistics cause them—those statistics are facts. 
As I said in my previous contribution the facts are that National was going to cut 540 police out of the system. Members should ask any policeman or policewoman around the country; the police remember what the previous Government aided and abetted by its coalition partner was proposing to do if it were re-elected in 1999. We came in and we said we would put more police on the beat and we did—in the order of I believe 450. 
Mr Mark challenged people to go out and talk with the police and to get in police cars at night all of which I have done. I regularly go around my police stations every couple of months or couple of weeks and talk with police. We had the Minister of Police down there about a month or so ago and he listened to what the police had to say. Of course the police like any other honourable civil servants—especially the police who put themselves in harm’s way—always want more resources in order to do a more effective job. But I tell members that when I go into the Papanui Police Station and talk about the history and about what is happening now I find that the morale there is fantastic with people like Andy McGregor leading a great team of individuals. I go to the Kaiapoi Police Station and talk to the lads and the women police there; I talk about morale and I listen to those people. They are out there actually doing the job while Mr Ron Mark puts the boot into them every day about the job they do. I understand that Mr Mark was a soldier and an honourable one. I do not know the details of his history but I assume he was in harm’s way at some point in his career. I have not been in harm’s way but I would have thought that a man who had been in harm’s way in the soldiering profession would have deep respect for and would deeply support others such as the members of the New Zealand Police who go out every day to protect ordinary folk—and also flash individuals like Mr Connell with his ranch or whatever it is in Ashburton—and their property. 
I can point to many many constituents in my electorate who have been assisted by the resources given to the police. Their crimes have been resolved. I just tell Mr Mark that he ought to stand beside the police get behind them actually encourage them and get up in this Parliament every once in a while—not every day not every week just once in a while—and say something supportive about the men and women in blue and not put the boot into them every day. He should not do what he did to a policeman in my electorate in Rangiora and that was put the boot into a very good community cop because that community cop actually wanted to continue serving as a member of the Waimakariri District Council. Why does he not support people like that man—one of the most popular community cops we have—instead of putting the boot in?