Mark Ron: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Mark Ron: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22209] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 We are here today to discuss the estimates for the new fiscal year. But it is I have to say a rather pointless exercise. It is pointless because on the issue of law and order on the issue of the police and on the question of whether our communities are safer feel safer have confidence in this Government to protect them have confidence in the Minister of Police to give the police the resources they need and have confidence in the Commissioner of Police to manage those resources this Government fails on every count. 
It is sad but I guess in some ways encouraging that when we go out into the streets clubs pubs and rugby clubs of New Zealand the New Zealanders we meet say unanimously that this Government has failed them in the area of police. This country will look back on the 111 debacles and say: “How could that ever have happened?”. When New Zealand First looks at the resources allocated by this Government to the police we see quite clearly that this Government does not understand in any way shape or form the problems the police are facing. 
The police ask for only three things. They ask for adequate resources—and police numbers within those adequate resources—they ask for the tools to do the job and they ask that appropriate priorities be accorded. But what do we see? In terms of resources in ratio terms we have a totally inadequate ratio of police to citizens in this country when compared with other likeminded nations. In terms of money the money that the Government crows about its having increased in the Budget goes no way to addressing the police’s ability to actually investigate the levels of crime that we are dealing with today. In terms of tools the police still want some simple tools. They want on-board data systems in their cars they want body armour they want stab-proof vests—actually they want simple things like socks to arrive on time; they do not want to wait 9 weeks to get a pair—and they want legislation like an amendment to the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act that would enable them to put young men away earlier rather than have them kill themselves on our motorways. 
They want the tools to put boy racers away at the earliest stage and not be dealing with them 30 40 or 50 convictions down the line. They want the tools to deal with people who rack up $70000 $80000 or $90000 worth of fines and thumb their noses at the law. They want priorities and they do not want the priorities built around traffic policing. 
But this Government has none of those things in its policy and I have to tell the public of New Zealand not to worry about it; after this election all those issues will be dealt with by New Zealand First. Why this Government insists on passing laws legalising prostitution—or lowering the drinking age which the previous Government did—and telling the public that the police will enforce the laws and failing every time in every Budget to deliver to the police the resources to do precisely that is absolutely beyond me. 
We have a crisis in the police force in terms of confidence. We are losing experienced officers hand over fist and one of the reasons we lose them is that we have an incompetent Minister of Police who when he is told that there are problems in the 111 system and is told 2 years in advance by a brave police officer in uniform he does nothing about it and the first time the public knows there is a problem is when a young lady goes missing and is never seen again. 
Police officers are leaving the force because they are sick of writing out tickets to pump up this Government’s revenue which is what it is. I ask the Minister if the speed cameras and the quota ticketing are working why are so many young men still dying on our roads? They are dying because the policy of issuing quota tickets does not work because it is catching law-abiding citizens in the main. It is not focusing on or targeting the recidivist offender—the person who should have been taken off the road. How ridiculous it is that a man with 23 convictions for being drunk in charge of a vehicle is still at large. How sad it is that young men who are clocking up $20000 or $30000 worth of fines get away with it only to die on the roads later.