Chris Bishop - Police

22 November 2018

The Government’s coalition promise that it would recruit an additional 1800 sworn frontline police over the next three years is already way behind schedule, says National’s Police spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

Answers to written questions reveal that since 1 November 2017, the week after the government was sworn in, until 1 November 2018, the government has only added 329 net new police to the force.

“Mr Nash is trying to spin that the starting point should be 30 June 2017, which is when National was in Government. This conveniently inflates his numbers.

“Unfortunately for him, he told Parliament he would count the new 1800 from the date the Government took office, and no amount of subsequent spin and trying to count cops recruited under National can change that.

“At this rate Mr Nash will take six years, not three, to add 1800 new police – yet another broken coalition government promise

“The Minister is trying to backpedal now, saying it’s ‘an aspirational target’, so even he knows he’s not going to make it.

“The Labour-led Government needs to admit that it’s going to fall woefully short of its target."

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