Simon Power
National Party Law & Order Spokesman

28 December 2005

Labour keeping police details from NZ First

National’s Law & Order spokesman, Simon Power, says it is clear that Labour is maintaining an “out” over its arrangements for the 1,000 extra police specified in the confidence and supply agreement with NZ First.

He is commenting on an answer by Police Minister Annette King to a written question that asked if NZ First was being provided with all Police documents on policy or work for Budget 2006 relating to the extra police.

“The answer is most revealing,” says Mr Power. “Annette King says NZ First will be provided with documents ‘as required’.

“What this tells me is that Labour is going to be holding back on detail in case it wants to change some of it at a later stage. It will sit on the policy and other work until – and if – it sees fit to release it to NZ First.

“Labour tricked NZ First into signing the confidence and supply deal in the first place by letting them think it involved 1,000 extra frontline police, and then tried to weasel its way out by playing with words over whether the agreement meant ‘frontline staff’ or just ‘staff’. Now it looks like Labour is going to sit on the detail of the policy as a bit of insurance, so they can change things as they go.

“After the play-on-words fiasco – exposed only when National pointed it out – you would think NZ First would be awake to Labour’s tricks. Sadly, it appears not.”

Ends

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