Police stance queried by Mr Palmer

Press, 6 August 1987, Page 3

Police stance queried by Mr Palmer

RODGER KINGSBURY

By

In Blenheim

The justification and propriety of the Police Association’s campaign for an additional 1000 members was questioned by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, at a public meeting in Blenheim on Tuesday evening. Mr Palmer said the association had joined the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which had been strongly linked to the National Party, to organise public rallies. "You have to ask yourself whether it is a healthy thing in a democracy to have the police actively involved in an election campaign,” he said.

Mr Palmer said the Police vote had more than doubled from $lB5 million to $377 million since Labour took office. Labour had implemented the Police Association’s two top priorities of early retirement and a substantial salary review. Both issues had been deliberately ignored by the National Government. The police pay review had led to increased costs of $55 million a year, the equivalent of more than 1000 officers. A first-year police constable was paid just over $22,000 in November, 1985. Within less than two years this was raised 48 per cent to $33,516.

The early retirement package cost $l3 million a year, the equivalent of more than 100 constables. In spite of these addi-

tional costs Labour had added an extra 388 police in the last three years, including more than 200 extra police on the streets and nearly 140 community police staff. National, in its last three years in office, increased police staff 173. Mr Palmer said National was now promising, from the safety of the Opposition benches, 500 or 1000 or however many extra staff the police wanted. Labour had increased the police vehicle fleet 35 vehicles and was spending $l2 million above the normal annual allocation on telecommunication equipment. The capital works programme was now $21.3 million, compared with less than $6 million when Labour took office. Mr Palmer said the Government had been steadily producing measures for the last three years to tackle the problem of crime. The March fall of 2.4 per cent in crime rates had been the first fall for 26 years. The law-and-order policy did not claim to stamp out violent crime overnight but it did promise to take effective action.

The strategy to combat crime was aimed not only at young offenders and violent offenders but also at parents, children, teenagers and victims. The strategy was being backed up with substantially increased resources aimed largely at implementing the recommendations of the Roper report.