21 May 2015

Government just scraping by on Police Budgets

Police budgets have been frozen for five years and today’s Budget announcement doesn’t come close to undoing the damage those freezes have done, New Zealand Police Association Vice President Luke Shadbolt said.

“Last year Police needed a top-up of $41 million just to scrape by. Therefore today’s announcement is once again another attempt at doing just enough and certainly does not provide funding for service increases. Without significant investment Police are at risk of serious service failure.

“Over the past several years, we have seen significant cuts to staffing to enable Police to make ends meet. Today’s announcement does nothing to address those.”

Mr Shadbolt said the total lack of detail in today’s Budget announcement showed the Government didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that Police funding hasn’t increased in years and that there is no money to deliver more services for the public.

“Without investment in Police crime rates will not continue to drop and the public will not continue to receive services they expect and need.”

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