The government's announcement of 1100 extra police officers was an admission that crime was rising, says NZ First leader Winston Peters.
National had been conning the public over the state of crime in New Zealand, Mr Peters said.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
On Thursday the Prime Minister pledged half a billion dollars to fight crime, boosting the number of sworn police officers by 880 and non-sworn officers by 245.
Mr Peters said the government had claimed for years that crime was falling, even though 90 per cent of burglaries were going unattended.
"They were engaged in a complicated exercise of deception by saying that crime was falling.
"For example, every criminal lawyer in the provinces will tell you, they were catching people, but rather than charging them, they were warning them - so a catch and release policy, so to speak."
The government's announcement was an election bribe that was too little too late, Mr Peters said.
"He puts it over four years for a start. It puts us way behind the ratio of police per thousand, that for example Australia's got."
Prime Minister Bill English said it was not an admission of anything.
"It's simply pointing out...it's picked up a bit lately so it is the time to get on top of the serious crime problems, deal with them better."
Police Minister Paula Bennett said there were 15 percent fewer reported crimes in 2016, than there were in 2011.
"So yes some crime has gone but actually we are still tracking ahead. We have had a population increase so this is in due to that as well," Mrs Bennett said.
But Labour's police spokesperson Stuart Nash questioned why it took the government so long to act.
He said in May last year, the then police minister Judith Collins signed off on a four-year strategic plan that said there would be no more police until 2020 - to only change her mind four weeks later.
"So I don't know what happened... but the fact that it's taken from the beginning of June until now to come up with plan's astounding."
"We came up with a plan in a couple of months and that was fully costed, ready to go, consulted with the police association and all the other key stakeholders," said Mr Nash.
The government says it had been working on the package since last May's Budget.
