John MacDonald: Cutting the police budget makes no sense

Hands off the Police. That’s my message to the Government. In particular, the Finance Minister who is asking all government departments to cut spending by at least 6.5%.  

I’m saying it after Police Commissioner Andrew Coster warned yesterday that he can’t rule out job losses if he’s to deliver the savings being demanded 

This has all come from his comments to Parliament’s Justice Select Committee, which he fronted-up to yesterday as part of the annual review of the police. 

And let’s be straight-up from the start, even though he’s describing what happened yesterday as “our opportunity to be scrutinised and to answer the questions members of Parliament have”, we know full well it was also an opportunity to make a very public bid for sustained funding. 

Before going into that select committee room yesterday, Andrew Coster would have very carefully worked out what key message he wanted to ram home to the politicians and get us talking about. 

So yes, it’s all part of a “process”. But it is also very political, and I think we can safely say that he has achieved what he set out to do.  

Which was to make us think twice about this cost-cutting songsheet the Government is singing from, and what it might mean if it takes a blunt instrument across the whole public sector. 

Because I think the Government is nuts if it thinks cutting police spending is a good idea. And it’s why I think, if there’s one government department that should be exempt from the budget cuts, it’s the Police. 

Andrew Coster says 75% of the money that goes into the Police pays the wages and salaries of the people who do the work. 

If you know anything about organisations and businesses, you’ll know that, generally, people make up about 60% of costs.  

So, for the Police to be at 75%, just shows you how right Andrew Coster is when he says that any cost cutting will most likely mean reducing staff numbers. 

And I know we all like to think that the most important part of the Police is the frontline work. The stuff we actually see. 

But, as Andrew Coster points out, if we want more police on patrol and fighting crime, they need more back-office support too. 

Which is not the sort of thing you’ll hear from the politicians —whatever side of the House they’re on— because they’re all about “on the beat” and “bringing back the Bobby”, aren’t they? 

That’s why Labour made such a dog’s breakfast last year with its big 1800 new police nonsense. And then had to dance on the head of a pin when we found out that not all of those 1800 were frontline. 270 of them were back office, non-sworn officers. They should have just been upfront about it. 

So, I get what Andrew Coster is saying. And I hope you do too. And I hope the Government does, as well. Because just telling every government department to cut costs by 6.5%, irrespective of where they sit in the pecking order, is balmy. 

For example, why should the Police be expected to make the same level of cuts or percentage of cuts as, say, the Education Review Office or Statistics NZ or the Ministry for Women?   

Granted, the Police budget is way bigger than those outfits and so 6.5% from the Police budget will deliver much bigger savings from the Ministry for Women, for example, which this year has a budget of around $15 million. 

The Police budget is $2.2 billion. The Ministry for Women’s budget is $15 million 

6.5% of $2.2 billion is $143 million. 6.5% of $15 million is $975,000. So, yes, Andrew Coster’s cost-cutting would deliver a lot more money for things like tax cuts, compared to the savings likely to come from much smaller government departments and agencies. 

But I say “so what” to that. I say hands off the Police budget. 

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