I don’t know about you but this Global Warming argument is starting to wear a bit thin with me. We’ve just had the coldest winter I can remember – two weeks of spring – then straight back into the depths of winter. Right now you could make a very good argument for the place to be warmed up.
And as I sat by the fire on Sunday night, reports were coming in telling us that hundreds were stranded on the Napier-Taupo Road. But the report that really got me thinking on Sunday night was the one that told me that the police, including the armed offender’s squad, were pursuing a dangerous armed offender through rural southern Hawke’s Bay. These poor cops had been dragged away from their warm homes and families, to trudge through mud, snow and sleet, knowing that at any time the offender could take a pot shot at them.
These cops were working, as it turned out, long hours in appalling climatic conditions, in distinct danger and you know, as a society we take them for granted.
We pay them appalling wages and we don’t even think enough of them to provide them with decent working conditions. I have been in both Napier and Hastings police stations in recent times and the working conditions we ask our cops to work in are simply, in my opinion, unacceptable. Appalling interview rooms, lack of good clerical equipment, smoko rooms that are an insult to the staff, nowhere for the staff to put their bags so they all end up down the hall, the list goes on.
Right next door to the Hastings police station, the government has built a new courthouse and the court staff is justifiably proud of it. Wonderful facilities for all the staff, brilliant facilities for those accused of crimes and – well I won’t go into the palatial facilities for judges.
My argument is simply this. Somehow we can find the funds to build beautiful new courthouses whilst at the same time we deny our front line police what I would consider basic amenities.
And don’t start me on cost cutting by cutting down the number of police cars, etc.
It is high time we recognised the job our policemen and women do and rewarded them appropriately in every way.
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