In Mt Roskill, we have had a number of gun incidents within the past three years Labour has been in government.

More recently, with two gun shooting incidents within the space of three days earlier this year in Mt Roskill, people were so scared that they didn’t want to speak up against such acts out of fear they were gang related. Such incidents have been quite unsettling for families and businesses.

This is not the kind of Mt Roskill that I want. I want to ensure Mt Roskill residents just like people in other suburbs are able to feel safe in their homes and streets.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see recently a misleading headline from a Labour member in this paper claiming there are 1,800 new police under them.

Labour has failed to deliver their target of 1,800 new police just like Kiwibuild and light rail. According to the Police Association, there has only been 1229 new police officers added to the Force, as of July 24 2020.

The government has failed to meet their target hugely by around 600. They promised to add 1,800 new police officers to our force. This was their big election promise. The Police Minister Stuart Nash confirmed that this was additional recruitment, accounting for those police officers who leave each year.

Even the Prime Minister promised there would be 1,800 additional police officers in the force. The target has always included attrition. But when it became clear Labour was never going to be able to deliver this promise, they moved the goal posts.

The Minister flip flopped, claiming it was never about including attrition, instead Stuart Nash is counting every person who’s been through the police college. There is a big difference in additional police versus recruits through the police college.

Why would New Zealanders care about how many recruits are going through a police college? What people care about is how many more police are on our roads to reduce crime.

Let the record speak for itself.

Under National the total recorded crime rate reduced by 13 per cent since June 2011. The youth crime rate reduced by 31 per cent since June 2011. Re-offenders fell steadily –by 29 per cent since June 2011.

Now let’s look at Labour’s record of this current term.

The most recent crime statistics show that there have been over 17,000 more victims than there were last year. We have seen a 34 per cent increase in the number of patched gang members. The last twelve months have seen 6,935 more victims of assault. More New Zealanders have become victims of theft with 7,000 more being made victims in the last year.

One of the few targets this Government has actually committed to was reducing prison numbers by 30 per cent. As in our local police region, gang members have risen from 194 to 260, could it be the case that people that are committing crimes are no longer necessarily being charged with offences that might lead to prison?

The increase in patched gang members under Labour shows that they have failed to keep such criminal elements in our society under control. It was not easy to keep such crime under control but National did it.

We in National Party do not accept this soft on crime approach. We are committed to making New Zealanders safe. This means being hard on crime and criminals. We will stand with our Police Force to give them the tools and resourcing they need to do their job.

We will clamp down on organised crime and drug dealers who push dangerous drugs into our communities, introduce Firearm Prohibition Orders to give Police more powers to stop dangerous people accessing firearms, increase funding and resourcing for the Independent Police Conduct Authority and increase allocation of Police to rural areas, including increasing one-person Police stations to two-person stations.

New Zealand’s frontline police officers are some of the most professional in the world. We are privileged to have such a dedicated Police Force who put their safety on the line to keep our communities safe. They deserve a government that supports their efforts to keep the worst criminals locked up.

-Dr Parmjeet Parmar, National List MP based in Mount Roskill National Party Spokesperson for Research, Science and Innovation , National Party Spokesperson for Statistics, Chair, Education and Workforce Select Committee