Connell Brian: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Connell Brian: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14416] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 What a muddling mess this Minister the Hon George Hawkins is making of this portfolio. It does not matter where one goes across the country on one extreme the front-line coppers are saying: “We are under stress and under-resourced.”; and at the other end of the spectrum up the executive ladder of the New Zealand Police they act more like politicians than anything else and they say as they have one eye on the Minister of Police to make sure they are giving the right answers: “No we have got plenty of resources. Our front-line police are not stressed.” Right in the middle of all of that is the public of New Zealand who are the victims of rising crime every day. A tidal wave of crime is coming over this country and all this Minister can do is say that things are OK. It is the leadership of this Minister that is causing the New Zealand Police to be in disarray. Front-line police— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: What a sad sterile speech. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: There is a member calling out. I do not recognise him. I think he may have had his head in an oven somewhere. I do not know whether anyone knows his name but he looks very very strange. I do not know what it is about the Minister of Police that he can thumb his nose when he comes to the select committee and say to people that crime is on the way down. He says: “We are getting on top of crime.” The Minister is confused and has selective memory loss. He cannot even read things put in front of him. 
Before I came down here I got some statistics about crime and how it is trending. These are police statistics that go back to the year 1999 and relate to total recorded crime. In 1999 there were 438704 recorded crimes in this country; in 2002 there were 440129; and in 2003 there were 442489. Yet the Minister of Police looked me in the eye at the select committee and said: “We are getting on top of crime; it is trending down.” I asked him: “What about violent crime?”. He gave me this answer: “Violent crime is on the way down.” Even this well-meaning buffoon could not have got that wrong. In 1999 the figure for recorded violent crime was 39688; in 2002 it was 44960; and in the year 2003 it was 45614. The Minister thinks that that is being on top of crime and that it is going the other way. 
 Well I have news for him and here is some more news. He said that drug crime was plateauing. I dragged out the statistics on drug crime as well. Recorded drug crime statistics in 2001 were 53340; in 2002 they were 55366; and in 2003 they were a whopping 58822 and the Minister of Police told everyone that they were on top of crime. Violent crime drug crime and property-damage crime—the crime that leads to the next spate of burglaries—is trending up and that Minister thinks that it is going the other way. 
Let us talk about the Southern Communications Centre. I have to commend the Minister for at least turning up today. When these questions were posed yesterday he ran a mile. He was not going to be seen anywhere to answer those questions but today we have him. When the Minister went to the select committee to deal with the estimates he said that the stress and the under-staffing at the Southern Communications Centre was a problem and he recognised it. When I asked what he would do about it he said they were going to get more staff. 
That was fine. I gave him a tick for that. I asked whether he had budgeted for more staff—“Er um . . .”! I said that I would help him by asking whether he had budgeted for more staff at the Southern Communications Centre than the 79 staff he had already allocated for policing. The Minister said “No”. I thought that was OK; it was fairly short notice. My next question was whether over the next 3 years any of 109 staff allocated were going to the Southern Communications Centre and his answer was “No”. Then on 23 June this year he changed his tune. He was asked in the House about staffing and performance at the Southern Communications Centre and he said that there was no problem.