Burglary is a low risk career and will become even more popular if the Government proceeds with cuts to CIB staff numbers in Wellington, Labour police spokesperson George Hawkins said today.

"I have been warning for months that the national police review - a cost-cutting exercise by a National Government desperate to claw back some of the costs of the Incis debacle - would have a devastating effect on the Wellington region.

"Sworn police numbers in the Wellington City area have reduced by 20 percent since 1998 and now the Criminal Investigation Branch could be cut in half.

"There simply won't be enough detectives to investigate all the cases. Crimes like burglary will be noted, filed and never followed up.

"Already just 7 percent of burglaries in Wellington are solved. That percentage is set to fall even further.

"National's cost-cutting will deny the police the ability to respond to 'minor' crime and will leave the people of Wellington without the protection they deserve," George Hawkins said.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>