Labour on Police

Stuff reports:

Mr Faafoi said the latest Ten One police magazine showed more than 50 sworn officers had resigned around the country in the past month.

“It’s the sheer number and the experience of these officers that’s of concern,” he said.

A meaningless number. The Police have around 11,500 staff. How many staff normally resign in a month? What has been the rate for the last year. A month’s figures by themselves may be a blip.

Mr Faafoi said the problem stemmed from cost-cutting and he was not surprised that there was nothing extra in the recent Budget for police.

Actually the Police were given an extra $4 million in the Budget for operational spending, and since 2008 their funding has increased by $173 million which is considerable, even more so when you consider the structural deficit inherited from Labour.

“It was more about the National Party’s mates than hard-working Kiwis and that extends to the police as well,” he said.

I think Labour came up with this slogan before they saw the Budget and are too lazy to change it. Is Kris really saying $100 million for home insulations for low income families is helping National’s mates, not hard working Kiwis? I thought Labour used to claim they cared for low income families. Does he think the extra $1.6 billion for health is restricted to National’s mates? And the $900 million for education? And please Kris tell us how the $2.1 billion extra for Christchurch is for National’s mates. sounds like National has lots of mates, and Labour has none.

As a result communities were not feeling as connected to police as they did in the past and Mr Faafoi believed this could have resulted in the drop in reported crime.

Trying desperately to spin his way out of the fact that not only is reported crime down, but serious violent crime is significantly down – and the notion that serious violent crimes are not being reported is laughable.

Mr Faafoi said Labour had a track record of looking after police officers and would look to rebuild the public’s confidence in the organisation.

Really. Please tell us about this track record. Labour’s opposed almost every law change that the Police have supported such as three strikes.