Wanted: good, keen men to enforce law and order

Taupo Times, Volume 23, Issue 54, 9 July 1974, Page 5

Wanted: good, keen men to enforce law and order

The New Zeaiand police force is iooking for keen young men, one of whose jobs will be to joiri the fight against violence. The Cabinet decision made recently was more than just merely to bring forward the planning designed for March 31, 1975. It should effectively add 500 trained men to the - police force. At pr-esent the police ratio is one policeman to every 800 citizens. The plan Cabinet has drawn will make the ratio one to 760; and as soon as this is accomplished Cabinet will approve more recruiting to make the ratio one to 745. The belief is that this can be done without lower-

ing the standard or recruiting outside New Zeaiand. PROBLEMS OF RECRU1TMENT Reduced to numbers, the first goal will call for 257

recruits, and the second about 217 more. Actually the numbers required are higher than that because retirements and drop-outs for other reasons go on all the time. A fair percentage of the "new boys" will merely be replacing normal wastage; so let us say the police are Iooking for something like 600 recruits in the long term. But for those who have not bothered much about police matters, ihe standard has changed. The big, hefty, noncogitating cop is no longer with us. In the most recent qualifying course more than 30 per cent of candidates had some form of tertiary education. There was a fair sprinkling with university degrees. THE TASK FORCE It seems that the task force is with us — not perhaps quite the task force of the television screen, but with some interesting overtones. Cabinet has approved another one for Auckland, and it will have 80 officers, male and female. To those who may argue the need for such a concentration, the Prime Minister, Mr Kirk, summed up: "For some reason we have people who do not accept the law or admit the rule of law." And that is, if anything, an understatement. But task forces tend to be sited in big cities. So far, in terms of violence, Auckland has first priority. Christchurch is not far behind — and ' greater Wellington may just qualify. DRUGS AND MIGRANTS Echoes of the Pagliara case, in which an Italian was deported for a drug offence, have caused an extension of Government

policy. Cabinet has decided that even if the offender is a Commonwealth citizen he may be deported to his country of origin. There was also complete Cabinet agreement on the thesis that the courts should make the decisions. If a court decision is unacceptable, both the ■ accused and the Crown now have the right of appeal. Another new decision is that if a person has been convicted on a drug count he is no longer an acceptable migrant. "We are trying to stamp out drug addiction in this country," Mr Kirk said. "Obviously it doesn't help if we allow into this country people of proved drug dependency." HOUSES AND STIRRERS Warnings have gone out to prospective home seekers that not all organisations posing as tenants' protection groups are responsible ones. Mr Kirk spoke out

firmly about the background of some such cases, and even named two members of one group as "stirrers" — more concerned with stirring up trouble than with- finding housing for clients. The suggestion is that legal action is pending in certain cases, basically because of the enormoUs damage which has been done because of the wide publicity given to certain tenancy incidents. Mr Kirk's main concern is that bona fide Maori tenants will be discriminated against. FERTILISER HELP The Government has approved a scheme of subsidy for fertiliser to farmers which is Tikely to cost $35 million in the full year. This may offset criticism that the Government has not been doing much for the farmers, who find themselves in trouble with the soaring price of fertiliser.