Hawkins Continues to Trip Up

George Hawkins seems to be operating on a random number theory when it comes to dealing with Police statistics, Police Minister Jack Elder said today.

"Mr Hawkins gets it consistently wrong when it comes to matters of fact."

Today, the Labour Police spokesperson claimed there were once "well over 7000 police officers" and this total had fallen to "around 6450".

"The last time there was a Labour Minister of Police, the Hon. Richard Prebble, there were 5090 sworn police staff. This rose steadily, and by the time the Coalition agreement was signed, there were 6384," Mr Elder said.

"By the time the Budget was delivered, this had risen to 6492. The Government has provided specific funding for the number of sworn police officers to rise to 6692 by the end of the financial year.

"The only way Mr Hawkins could salvage some semblance of accuracy out of his haphazard bandying of numbers would be add on all civilian office workers, volunteers, cafeteria workers and car washers."