In his first major announcement of election year, Prime Minister Bill English has unveiled a significant government investment in Police and the wider justice sector to reduce crime and keep our communities safe.

The $500 million Safer Communities package will provide an extra 1125 police staff, including 880 sworn police officers. This initiative will make a real difference for our more remote communities.

All Police districts will receive extra frontline officers, with the first recruits beginning training in July to hit the beat in November. As a high-growth area I will strongly advocating for the Bay of Plenty to see our fair share of this new intake. New Zealand is the fourth-safest country in the world, but we want to make it number one.

Offenders targeted

This package unashamedly targets offenders to ensure they are off our streets – by providing additional resources to resolve more crime and target criminal gangs and organised crime.The 880 extra frontline police officers will work in areas where we know they’re needed. This includes 500 to go out on the beat and into community policing. Those officers will improve the speed of Police to attend emergencies. The National Government is also making a commitment that all New Zealanders, from Papamoa Beach Rd to Soldiers Rd up in the Kaimai Range, that there will be officers you can call on 24/7. Another 140 officers will focus solely on regional and rural policing, meaning 95 per cent of New Zealanders are within 25km of 24/7 police support, every day of the year.

There will be more specialist investigators in the areas of child protection, sexual assault, and family violence, and more officers will target organised crime. We’re also providing additional resources to address the underlying drivers of crime – through preventative work by the Police and greater investment in rehabilitation for prisoners.

Responsive service

By focusing on specific areas in this wide-ranging policy we will deliver a more responsive police service, prevent crime and victimisation, resolve more crimes, and more effectively target criminal gangs and organised crime.

The package comes with a range of challenging targets for the Police. Those include higher attendance at home burglaries, more assets seized from organised crime, fewer deaths from family violence, and a reduction in reoffending by Maori.

The targets won’t be easy to meet – but we don’t shy away from hard issues.

We’re here to make a difference. Investing more in Police will make our communities safer. It will reduce crime and reoffending, and help steer some of our most disadvantaged young people onto a more productive path. That’s an outcome worth investing in.