THE PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1989. A thinner blue line

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 14

THE PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1989. A thinner blue line

The latest reductions in police numbers, to conform with the Government’s budgetary directions, will ensure that law and order ranks high among election issues next year. The force is already down by 230 officers on its establishment; just a week ago it was announced that 180 new recruits expected to join the force this year will not now do so, because two intakes to the Trentham police training college have had to be cancelled; now 267 existing jobs in the force will have to go as well in an attempt to meet? the Government’s demand for an. $ll million cost-cutting exercise. This adds down to a police force 650 below strength, and even that might; not be the end. Further cuts will be made if those already announced fail to meet the budgetary target.

The Government has blundered and undoubtedly will pay at the polls for being so far out of touch with the people. The more astute members of the Cabinet know that security in its many aspects is the over-riding concern of almost every New Zealander — security of employment, security in retirement, security in health care, and personal security at home and in public places.

The vast social changes wrought by the two Lange administrations have severely shaken the sense of security among ordinary people. Unemployment is rising, superannuation and retirement provisions are again in limbo, hospital services are being cut back at the same time as prescription charges are rising, and now, incredibly, the Government is determined to reduce further the strength of the police force in the face of rapidly escalating crime.

It matters little that there is no direct correlation between the number of police and the rate of. crime. People whose houses or whose neighbours’ houses have been broken into are not interested in academic arguments. They want police protection and the apprehension of the offenders. The chances of either have been reduced and the Government will take the blame. And Muggins, the taxpaying householder, already paying more for reduced Government services and facing a further increase in GST, will have to pay even more for this reduction in service: the president of the New Zealand Insurance Council, Mr Murray White, has warned already that insurance rates will go

up in the wake of increasing burglaries resulting from reduced police protection and property recovery rates. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of itjall is the off-hand approach the Government has taken to what even the newest member of Parliament would recognise as a political hot potato. The announcements of the last two weeks have had to come from the police, while the Minister, Mr Tapsell, is overseas. The Acting Minister of Police, Mr Jeffries, might not relish the spot in which Mr Tapsell has left him, but he has made a poor fist of attempting to justify the Cabinet’s decisions on the police. Indeed, Mr Jeffries prdved to be as out of touch with the facts as the : Government is out of touch with public feeling when he declared that the cuts affected few sworn officers but mainly civilian auxiliaries. The 267 reductions in police jobs account for 52 civilian posts and ■215 frontline sworn officers.

The. Commissioner 0f... Police,Mr Jamieson, says that not everyone is satisfied with the service they are getting now from the police on routine complaints. “This impression will obviously increase and, sadly, people are going to have to reduce their expectations of us,” he says. This is so, but the real damage from reduced policing will be more long-term than the pigeon-holing of burglary files.

The National Party has pledged to increase the number of police by 300 a year in each of the three years of the next Government — if the party is elected. The Opposition here presents voters with one of the few clear-cut policy differences between the major parties. But the cuts from the present Government go so deep that the additions of ■ the first two years under National would be needed merely to bring the police up to full strength. The Labour Government still parades its concern for security, and for human rights. But its recent actions are further eroding the most fundamental concern of a civilised society — the right of law-abiding citizens to go about their business free from fear of criminal assaults on their lives and property. Any government that denies adequate protection to its citizens, day-by-day, ultimately forfeits its claim to govern. Labour now is close to that point.