Appointments — Deputy Police Complaints Authority

I move, That pursuant to section 8 of the Police Complaints Authority Act 1988, this House recommend Her Excellency the Governor-General to appoint John Alexander Lemon Gibson QC, of Wellington, as the deputy to the Police Complaints Authority for a term of 2 years.

It is the function of the authority and any deputy to investigate complaints alleging any misconduct or neglect of duty by a member of the police, or concerning any practice, policy, or procedure of the police that affects a complainant. Section 8(1) of the Police Complaints Authority Act 1988 provides: “There may from time to time be appointed a deputy to the person appointed as the Police Complaints Authority,”. The position has been vacant pending the passage of the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill, which is currently before the House and awaiting the Committee stage. That bill allows for a three-member authority, but in the meantime the Government would like to move now to provide some additional support to the authority, which is under some pressure due to the number of complaints.

As the Deputy Police Complaints Authority, John Gibson QC will oversee the decision making of investigations and the administration of complaints. The Act requires that a deputy authority be a qualified barrister and solicitor of the High Court and possess suitable legal experience for the task. Mr Gibson has had a distinguished legal career and has an extensive range of experience in criminal law, which will equip him well for the work with the authority. Mr Gibson was appointed as a QC in 1986 and remains in practice in Wellington. He is a former chairperson of the New Zealand Law Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, and until recently was chairperson of the New Zealand Stock Exchange disciplinary committee.

I note that with the exception of one party, this appointment is supported by all parties in the House. The current Police Complaints Authority, Judge Borrin, also welcomes the appointment of John Gibson QC, and he joins me, along with the majority of members in this House, in wishing Mr Gibson well for his future position as Deputy Police Complaints Authority.

This is a Government motion to appoint a deputy to the Police Complaints Authority for a term of 2 years. As the honourable Minister of Justice said, National opposes this Government motion, which seeks to appoint the nominated individual.

The timing of this appointment is unfortunate because of two particular instances. First, the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill has not been passed. The bill has a long legislative history. It was introduced on 4 December 2002, referred to the Law and Order Committee on 20 February 2003, and not reported back until 17 November 2003. It is a disgrace that the legislation should have been delayed for as long as that. As members will know, the customary report-back period, set by default in the Standing Orders, is 6 months. The bill languishes on the Order Paper now. I see that yesterday it was in position No. 6 and today it is in position No. 11, awaiting the Committee stage.

The bill, which arose out of a review of the Police Complaints Authority, seeks to change the name of the authority to the Independent Police Complaints Authority, and to increase the authority’s membership from one to three persons, including a chairperson who is to be a current or former judge. The bill also makes it clear that the authority may defer taking action on a complaint if a criminal investigation, disciplinary investigation—or both—is being conducted by the police in relation to a matter. It allows the authority, when deciding whether to hold a hearing, to have regard to whether proceedings or a coroner’s inquest is pending or reasonably contemplated. It confers on the authority appropriate powers under the Commissions of Inquiry Act for the purposes of holding a hearing. It sets out a procedure that enables the authority to disclose information that has come to its knowledge, through the exercise of its functions, about a defendant who has been charged with, or convicted of, an offence punishable by imprisonment. Finally, in general terms, it provides for a number of matters relating to the appointment of members and the administration of the authority that are consistent with the Government’s Crown entity reforms.

But, very significantly, the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill does not provide for the office of deputy. Yet here we are confronted with a motion that proposes that the deputy have a tenure period for a term of 2 years. So the Government is making an appointment for a term when it knows that the appointment will be overtaken, perhaps quite swiftly, by the passage of the amending legislation. That is an illustration of bizarre Government activity. That is the first reason. Why is this being done when there is a bill sitting on the Order Paper that will do away with this office? It may be that the Minister will have an opportunity to explain why it is being done.

The second reason why National opposes this appointment is that it has indicated—and I and others have clearly indicated it in this debating chamber—that it proposes to reconstitute the Police Complaints Authority by incorporating within it an independent prisoner complaints authority. I spoke on this issue as recently as 5 May, and endeavoured to put the case as to why that reconstitution and incorporation proposal is appropriate. It is a pity that we are, apparently, about to surge ahead with the present appointment with that issue similarly unresolved.

I do not wish to debate the issue of the suitability of the nominee. That is not appropriate. But I would say that whatever Mr Gibson’s qualifications and experience for office might be, it is clearly inappropriate to proceed in making that appointment now.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the motion. The profile of Mr John Gibson QC is interesting. I see that he is from Wellington; he is a graduate of Victoria University; he is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators—some may say he will need those skills; he was a partner in the firm of Stacey, Smith and Gibson and has practised as a barrister since 1978. He has been a member of the Wellington District Law Society council for 5 years and has served on a number of law society committees, including the Wellington District Law Society committee on the role of women in the profession. He is the chair of the society’s committee on children and the Family Court. He has been chair of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Licensing Board since its inception in 1980, and has acted as a police disciplinary tribunal member.

A number of people have spoken very highly of Mr Gibson QC. Among them are the Attorney-General of the day, the Rt Hon Geoffrey Palmer, and the Hon W P Jeffries, a former Minister of Transport. New Zealand First has no objection to his appointment to the board, but we have to mention here today the function and the purpose of the Police Complaints Authority. We note, sadly, as Dr Worth pointed out, that the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill still languishes on the Order Paper. How bizarre it is, given the type of legislation we have seen go through this House and the many hours we have spent in urgency chasing a raft of trivial legislation—the many, many hours that have been devoted in the House to such issues as civil union, prostitution; a number of things that seem to be the penchant of Labour MPs and seem to be foremost in their minds these days—that we do not seem to progress legislation that is vitally important to the police.

The Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill has been languishing on the Order Paper. That legislation is particularly important, considering the loss of confidence that the public has suffered as a result of a very inept performance from a Minister over the last 5 years and the policing priorities that have been accorded by this Government, specifically with regard to its focus on traffic issues. The reason, which the Minister himself has alluded to, that the Government is moving forward with this appointment of a Deputy Police Complaints Authority concerns New Zealand First. Mr Worth is quite right. There is no provision for a deputy, but I say to the National Party that for every appointment throughout this land, there is a deputy somewhere. The Commissioner of Police has a deputy somewhere, and there is a raft of deputy commissioners behind the deputy. It makes eminent sense to New Zealand First that a deputy is appointed now.

But one of the things the Minister mentioned in his speech is that the need for this appointment has arisen because the Police Complaints Authority is under extreme pressure because of the large number of complaints. Therein is the real issue here. We have not ever seen a time in New Zealand when there have been so many complaints left on the back-burner and so many complaints still under investigation. I have in my possession right now a file concerning a police officer whose case has been dragged out to be what we in New Zealand First would consider as unacceptably long. Both of the complaints lodged against him have taken a year to come to the stage where a prosecution has been laid. I am totally convinced that at the end of the day this man will be found innocent. Then we will deal with the issue of he himself having laid complaints against the police, through the Police Complaints Authority.

An unacceptable policy is being allowed to exist by this Government, whereby police officers who have had complaints laid against them are left hung out to dry for months—years. The Government touts itself as being the great protector of the working-class people of this nation and a great advocate for State servants. The Minister raves on endlessly in this House about how supportive he is of the police. For him to say that, while the Government ignores the plight of police officers who are under stress, under pressure, and overworked, who sit on suspension waiting for investigations to be concluded, and whose families are under pressure because of the focus upon them, is totally unacceptable. It belies the Government’s true feelings towards police officers—men and women—and it actually paints the Government as being one of the worst employers in this country.

Who else would allow a police officer to be left under investigation for 12, 15, or 18 months, then just before Christmas, only when he rings in and asks what is going on with the investigation against him, to be told offhandedly that it has been decided to charge him? What sort of Government allows that kind of administration within the police? New Zealand First has been inundated with letters from members of the public telling us stories of situations when the police will not investigate crimes. Our normal advice to them is to lay a complaint with the Police Complaints Authority. Sadly, these people come back and ask why they would do that, when it takes months or years to get even a hearing, let alone a result.

We know that the Police Complaints Authority is under huge pressure. We know that the workload is immense. We know that the workload in terms of investigating cases is immense. But this situation is occurring only because we have a fundamental problem in the police. The problem is that they are under-resourced and understaffed, and they make mistakes. When they get it wrong—for all the reasons that exist out there—the citizens of this country lodge complaints, and those complaints are not acted upon in a timely manner.

I draw the House’s attention to page 6 of the Statement of Intent 2005/06, which states police values. The first is: “Maintain the highest level of integrity and professionalism.” The second is: “Respect individual rights and freedom.” My message to this Government is to apply those values as a good employer to the men and women in blue who work for it. They have a right to see the police commanders, the men and women who command them, held to the highest levels of integrity and professionalism. The individual rights and freedoms of police officers must be respected. They should not be treated as second-class citizens just because they happen to wear the blue uniform. To allow complaints against them to sit festering for months and years is totally unacceptable.

I note with interest on page 16, under the general heading “Police’s Organisational Development Focus for 2005/06 and Beyond”, the heading “Integrity: Police Integrity and Professional Standards”. I signal in this House today, and have it put in Hansard, that we have grave concerns about the professional standards being policed within the police force. It seems to us that some people in the police who hold such appointments actually get a buzz out of targeting their own. We have the gravest fear that their performance is assessed on how many charges they can bring against their own, whether or not there are solid grounds for those charges.

I have on my files evidence of a man, a police professional standards officer, bringing charges against police officers, having those charges investigated, and having people put through the wringer—through the mill—for many months, only for those allegations to be totally dismissed and totally disproved. He has been reprimanded—but what is the point? The issue here is what happens then to the police officer who has been falsely accused, held up to criticism and ridicule, and put on the line and tested for months and months, only to be found to be as innocent as he said he was all along? I look forward to seeing a Police Complaints Authority that is truly independent and that takes seriously its responsibility to expedite investigations and inquiries in a very, very timely manner.

I, too, will take the opportunity to comment on the general issue that overhangs the proposed appointment of John Gibson QC to this post. Mr Gibson is a man of considerable experience. He has a very extensive knowledge of the criminal law. He has held semi-judicial offices and will be very experienced in dealing with the kinds of issues and procedures that will be involved in this office.

But the office is under a cloud. To appoint someone to a position like that for 2 years raises the whole problem that our legal traditions and conventions try to avoid—that of officers in judicial roles looking as if they might be beholden to the Government. A man who has a 2-year appointment, and who thinks it is a job he would like to keep, will obviously be suspected of kowtowing to those who appoint him. It is completely wrong to appoint someone to that position for a 2-year period, even though the Government has done so probably not because of a deliberate expectation that it will be able to suborn or influence him—I do not think that it will, and I doubt whether that was the Minister’s intention—but because of utter incompetence in deciding on the future of the Police Complaints Authority.

Three and a half years ago when the Police Complaints Authority was very much flavour of the month, there was grave concern that it had lost its public reputation. People had lost confidence in the authority, and nothing whatsoever has been done to repair its reputation. At the very least, the Government could have resourced the authority enough to make it administratively efficient.

If there is one group that ought to have been out there campaigning to keep the Police Complaints Authority in its current form, it is the police, because it has offered them something that I think is of value. It has offered the police a modicum of self-regulation: the police have provided the staff for the Police Complaints Authority, and its investigative work has been done by senior, respected men from within the police. Any disciplined uniformed force should value that, because it means that its members know they will be judged by people who are equipped to understand the pressures on them.

But instead of enabling the Police Complaints Authority to have champions even within the police, the Government has allowed it to get into a position where it is hopelessly overwhelmed. Certainly, the appointment of an extra authority in the person of Mr Gibson should help. But many complaints actually result from inattention, failure to act, lost evidence, and other mistakes—possibly even disciplinable mistakes—that are inevitable in a service that deals with the volume of crime we have.

The Police Complaints Authority itself must feel embarrassed at having no moral authority to criticise. How can the authority come out with robust findings on some of the complaints made against the police for inattention, oversight, or delay, when the authority itself must know, even as it is writing reports, that it can be rightly criticised for the same problem—for the inability to put the right resources on to the job? I respect the people who man the authority, and I respect the judge. I am sure that he agonises, but there can be no doubt that he must feel squeamish when he writes reports, knowing that his own office, were it to be subject to the same kind of review, would be unavoidably in the position where it could not perform to the standard he would want.

The Minister has left this bill languishing, not because Parliament would not have passed it, even though I expressed the ACT party’s reservations about moving to a system that was completely divorced from the police. We have those reservations for the simple reason that although it sounds great in theory to have an entirely independent authority, it is very easy for disciplined forces to close ranks against outsiders.

One of the advantages of the current Police Complaints Authority regime is that investigations have been done from within. That is a disadvantage as well, because it means there has been a fear that perhaps those inquiries might have been influenced by too much of the “there but for the grace of God go I,” idea. That is the price we have paid for having a tradition of cooperation from the police with investigation.

That bill has been sitting there, and those proposed reforms were issued, with his usual throbbing intensity, by the Minister of Justice in vowing he would get on top of it—and nothing has happened. Nothing has happened in the whole area of—

💬 Ron Mark: Police!

STEPHEN FRANKS:—reviewing police injustices—the police—but that is due not just to the gormless and hapless Minister of Police but also to the foaming and gormless Minister of Justice.

Members might remember that we heard there would be a review of the exercise of the royal prerogative. We heard we were to have an independent authority that would be a little like the British criminal review body—which examined cases where the watchdogs had failed, and where the watchers watching the watchdogs were under suspicion—but nothing has happened. We have not heard a thing about that for nearly 2 years. What have been the Government’s priorities, instead?

💬 Ron Mark: Civil unions and prostitution.

Civil unions, as Mr Mark points out, and the Prostitution Reform Act. But, of course, there have been far more urgent items in the justice portfolio—the New Zealand Council of Law Reporting Amendment Bill, and the Oaths Modernisation Bill, which was introduced to change the word “honest” into the word “faithful” in our oaths and declarations.

💬 Ron Mark: They don’t want to be honest.

No, the Government does not like being honest. Those are the sorts of priorities that Mr Goff’s team has managed to bring into this House. [Interruption] They want faithful servants!

It is interesting that our poor candidate, Mr John Gibson QC, will probably be one of the last ones to swear an oath—if there is an oath, and I am sure there is—that he will be honest, because by the time that this Government is through, we will probably have people swearing to be faithful. I ask: faithful to what? They will be faithful little lapdogs to their appointing masters. That is what a 2-year appointment does.

In fact, the same Minister, George Hawkins, has done this before. That Minister has made a whole series of short-term appointments to the Film and Literature Board of Review. The Government has been tinkering around with the appointment provisions of the Waitangi Tribunal, too, so that the chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal can stack divisions as he sees fit.

The attitude in this Government towards judicial office is destroying the need for the mana and authority that is derived from public trust and respect. The Government does not actually give a toss about whether the Police Complaints Authority is chaired by people who can feel proud of what they are doing. If it did, it would have added more money to its budget than it has. I think that the increase in the budget for the authority, if I recall rightly, is $29,000. I mean, that is absolutely trifling. The Government has given $454,000 to the Human Rights Commission to develop our national plan of action for human rights, which will be a whole farrago of—

💬 Judith Collins: Let’s export it to China.

We should export it to China, as Judith Collins said. The Government has given $454,000 to that commission, but it has given only $29,000 to a body that is really defending human rights—that is going right to the core of our confidence in the integrity of policing, that reassures people who complain that their suspicions were unfounded, and that is doing the real work of defending citizens—the Police Complaints Authority. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection from having flicked through the Budget was that it received only $29,000 extra, or maybe that was $29,000 for new initiatives. But, if I am correct, whatever the figure was it was absolutely derisory.

If Mr Gibson is listening to this debate, I would tell him to think again before accepting office for a body that is set up to fail under the current regime, the current budget, and the current priorities. The Human Rights Commission bunch of tossers will get half a million dollars, but the body to which Mr Gibson is going will not have enough money even to pay for extra staff.