Garth George: Government's spin machine seems to take us for fools

With the election getting ever closer, the Government's spin machine is spooling up and the sheer audacity of the dissembling, double-speak and half-truths being poured forth are already enough to make George Orwell blush.

If the ministers so far concerned really think that the public is so gullible as to believe their attempted justifications of the unjustifiable, they are more out of touch with the man in the street than I thought they were.

First off with a piece on this page last week was Defence Minister Mark Burton, who tried to tell us that spending $4.6 billion over the next 10 years on the Defence Force would "continue a systematic approach to restoring the capability of our armed forces".

But the fact is that if the Government were to spend the whole $4.6 billion right now, we still wouldn't have a proper defence force, at least one which would be recognised as such in any other country in the world. A wing of F-16 strike fighters for the Air Force and a couple of fully equipped missile frigates for the Navy would knock over that amount of money and more.

And those two items are not just wishful thinking from a bloke brought up in the days when the armed services were properly armed. In any other country, and particularly a maritime country such as ours, they would be considered indispensable.

Which only goes to show that this socialist Government has not the slightest idea of what a properly constituted Defence Force is and has based its defence policy on Helen Clark's naive - stupid even - belief in a "benign strategic environment".

A Defence Force is supposed to be a military force, consisting of three services, which is able to defend the nation against any threat and to take its place alongside its Allies in meeting and repelling any threat to them as well.

A Defence Force is not a peacekeeping organisation, nor is it an international aid agency, although there are times when it can undertake those roles better than most.

An Army is a corps of men and women armed with rifles and pistols and machineguns and grenades and weapons carriers and artillery pieces able quickly to deploy to any trouble spot where the Government of the day dictates they should be. Their job is to protect the goodies and kill the baddies.

A Navy is a service whose job it is to protect our seaways using modern, lethal warships able to meet any sea or airborne threat and to provide support from the sea for our land-based troops in protecting the goodies and killing the baddies.

An Air Force is, in any other country but this, the first line of defence, equipped with deadly fighter and bomber aircraft able to fly off at supersonic speeds to clobber the first-wave baddies, and to provide air cover for the Army and Navy, without which both would soon be annihilated.

And, of course, all three forces need all the ancillary services - communications, transport, supply, maintenance, engineering, medical and sanitary, intelligence and so on that make the frontline soldiers, sailors and airman able to operate.

So don't try to tell me that a piddling $460 million a year for 10 years will do anything but patch up a few gaping holes in our gravely deficient armed services material and personnel. It certainly won't provide us with a Defence Force in the accepted meaning of that term and restore our credibility with our neighbours and Allies.

Then there's George Hawkins' defence of the police force which appeared here on Monday in which he tries to tell us that the widespread criticism of the police does not tally with a big fall in recorded crime.

Note his use of the word "recorded" and ask yourself why he goes to such great pains to insist that unreported crime has no bearing on the allegedly diminishing figures. Yet we all know that many New Zealanders are so fed up with the response, or lack of it, from the police that hundreds of what the police now consider to be minor (or unsolvable) crimes do, in fact, go unreported. Then there are the phantom responses to 111 calls.

Mr Hawkins seems so divorced from reality that he is unable to understand that if criticism of the police is widespread in a country in which up to a few years ago the police were held in the highest esteem, there is something seriously amiss.

The public are not stupid. Anyone with half a brain knows that the police are undermanned, under-resourced and poorly managed and that too many of the resources in manpower and equipment are directed at handing out traffic tickets while burglars and car thieves and other evil-doers run free. But poor old Mr Hawkins reaches the bottom of the barrel when he blames the public's perception of a policing crisis on the media, electioneering politicians and the Police Association.

Says he: "We do not live in a perfect world. But our police are among the best-trained, best-resourced and most professional forces in the world, and they are delivering results that make our roads, homes and communities safer."

All that goes to show is that the minister holds a wide segment of public opinion in utter contempt. And if he believes his own propaganda, he has no right to be in Parliament, let alone Government, but should be under psychiatric care.

* Last week, in my flu-induced haze, I talked about visiting the near 1000-year-old Blue Mosque in Istanbul when I meant the Hagai Sophia. The Blue Mosque, much newer (17th-century) and flasher, is just down the road.