Tax cuts 'at cost of policing'

Winston Peters

Winston Peters has launched his law and order policy, warning big tax cuts would come at the expense of better policing and health services.

New Zealand First wants to reverse the merger of traffic officers and police and then to double over five years the number of remaining sworn police officers, which it estimated at about 5000.

Mr Peters told about 170 people at the Masterton Town Hall yesterday that the move was necessary to restore security in homes, on the street and in the community.

There are already problems recruiting police, and Justice Minister Phil Goff said that in such a climate the pledge would force standards to be dropped.

But Police Association president Greg O'Connor supported the plan, saying wage increases would turn around the recruitment problem.

The promise of 1000 more police a year, already announced, is one of NZ First's key election pledges, although Mr Peters is so far refusing to talk about bottom lines.

But in a clear reference to National's tax cuts, to be unveiled on Monday, he urged people to consider the social costs of significant tax cuts and warned that extra police were likely to be among them.

"Before you might be persuaded by other parties who are promising all sorts of reductions in taxation, ask yourself how are they going to get law and order back with more resourcing in New Zealand?

"Ask yourself also, do they ever intend to stop having our women have to go to Australia for cancer operations, or people die of inferior drugs, or people getting off hospital waiting lists, or people getting operations?

"So when people promise you all sorts of tax cuts, ask yourselves are you happy with things now? Because until we end up with the waiting lists one third of what they are, proper pharmaceuticals and an extra 5000 police, their words in this campaign aren't worth the air they pass on."

The next four days will be dominated by the two biggest parties, which hold their campaign launches in Auckland on Sunday.

Mr Peters said yesterday that he would release his tax plans on Thursday.

They are understood to be fully costed and the party hopes the policy will give it a much-needed lift.

NZ First plans to focus its attacks on the big party judged to be losing support in the final weeks of the campaign, as it hunts for disillusioned or soft voters seeking a party to moderate the apparent winner.

At least several NZ First MPs believe Labour will triumph but hope that fears of a Labour/Green coalition will turn voters its way.

A neck-and-neck race between Labour and National all the way to election day is the worst scenario for NZ First and would diminish its potential voter pool.

Mr Peters is under growing pressure within his own party to spell out before the election whether he would choose to enter a coalition government, or prop up a government with a confidence and supply arrangement from the cross-benches.

He is expected to take that step in the last few weeks of the campaign, when he may also announce his post-election bottom lines.