We should all realise by now that the National party and their coalition partners haven’t been a very good government for New Zealand. Nearly every statistic concerning our society has worsened since they first gained power in 2008. But a couple of statistics stand out a bit more than the others for all the wrong reasons.
Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:
Attempted suicide police callouts increase by 6 per cent a year
Family violence and mental health jobs are time-intensive for police. On an average day officers will attend 74 mental health-related callouts, with each taking, on average, three hours to resolve.
The Police Association has called the surge in mental health jobs an "indictment" on the wider mental health service, and says police are being left to care for the vulnerable.
...
Since 2009, there has been a 51 per cent increase in total mental health callouts.
If the National party was really delivering for New Zealand as they claim, we simply wouldn’t be seeing such terrible statistics that clearly show they’re a negligent government.
On family violence, the total volume of calls attended increased by 55 per cent since June 2009, to more than 100,000 a year. Over the same time, calls that eventually saw a criminal charge laid did not increase - callouts that didn't result in a charge increased by more than 100 per cent.
Bill English can't exactly claim that the increased amount of callouts for family violence is because of more reporting, which seems to be their go to excuse for everything.
The increase in this case is because there's simply more family violence going on, likely because of financial hardship and housing pressures.
This is just another good reason to vote for a political party that will actually work to fix New Zealand and not the National party who has been making things worse.
