Catchpole Brent: Budget Debate 
Catchpole Brent: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5972] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I walked into the House on Budget day with high expectations of an exciting Budget. After all this Government had a $4 billion surplus but what I heard of this Budget was dull boring and lacked anything to do with the real issues facing this country right now. The Minister of Finance Michael Cullen told us yesterday that the $4 billion surplus was a paper surplus only not really cash in the bank. The real truth about the surplus—and what the Government is not telling the people—is that Michael Cullen has no idea where it came from and he is salting it away for a rainy day. That rainy day is the election year. Promises will be made to win votes but immediately the election is over the promises and the surplus will evaporate. The people are being set up to be conned yet again by this Labour Government. 
This Budget allows funding for an additional 50 police in Auckland only spread over 4 years. Auckland is short by more than twice that number right now caused by the mass exodus of people leaving the police because of overwork and the futility they feel when they look at the bulging cabinets of incomplete case files—files where the identity name and address of the perpetrator is known but the police do not have the personnel or the resources to get the cases to the courts and finality. The Minister of Police George Hawkins proudly stands in this House and tells us how close police manning levels are to the budgeted levels but the Minister is not giving us the figures for the approved levels which are quite different to the budgeted levels. For example a station with an authorised level of 30 has a budgeted level of 20—sorry that has just been reduced to 19 in this Budget and the actual level is 18. We are constantly told that the station is one person short only. In fact that station is 12 short of the authorised level which was set 20 to 25 years ago. Members should think about that. This Government’s cunning sleight of hand is nothing more than deception. The way those figures are presented make it a lie. 
The “Weekend Herald” of May 17-18 states: “The police deal with crime on priorities worked out nationally regionally and put into practice on a daily basis by station supervisors. Crimes of violence are given the highest priority in line with public expectations.” Minor offences are way down the list and left to rot in the gutter. All of that is after issuing one speeding ticket and one seatbelt ticket per hour. Clearly that is a directive to help compensate for the shortfall in police funding offered by this Budget. Jill Pettis screamed across the House to my colleague Peter Brown: “What about the burglaries?” Let us look at the “Crime File” of the week’s burglaries in south Auckland—the home patch of the Minister of Police George Hawkins—which was published last Friday 16 May in the  
Manukau Courier 
. In Mangere there were 10 burglaries in the previous week up to 16 in the current week. In Otahuhu there were 12 up to 25. In Otara there were 10 up to 18. In Papatoetoe—and he would be pleased about this one—there were 32 down to 21 but in Manurewa there were 15 up to 30. Where is the so-called lowering of the burglary rate as Jill Pettis called out? 
Dr Cullen and Mr Hawkins should get real and provide the police with the resources and manpower to do the job the public expects them to do—that is respond to the public need solve the cases and really reduce crime levels in all of our cities. They should give back to the police the pride they need in the work they do and regain the respect of the public.