Financial Review Debate — New Zealand Police

I would just like to open by congratulating, first of all, the Hon Judith Collins, who was the Minister of Police from 2008 to 2011, and, of course, the Hon Anne Tolley, who has now taken up the reins and is doing a fantastic job, and is continuing the same brilliant work that the Hon Judith Collins started in 2008.

💬 Andrew Little: Tell us about the brilliant work!

I will tell you a little bit about it, Andrew.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member must refer to members by their full names or titles, not their first names.

Sorry, Mr Chair. I will tell you a little bit about it, Andrew Little. I served in the police for 14 years. Unfortunately, I served under a Labour Government.

💬 David Bennett: Shame.

It was a shame. Morale dropped, and we were always pressed to fight for funding and equipment. I left the police in 2002 and went overseas. I came back last year, and I have started touching base with a lot of my colleagues, and I have looked very carefully at what has been happening in the police. I am very, very proud to say that morale is at an all-time high. I met with the newly appointed area commander for Rodney, Inspector Scott Webb. He was saying he is now commanding a force in the Rodney area that is highly motivated and is contributing to incredible results. We keep seeing our crime statistics drop year on year.

💬 Phil Twyford: Labour policy.

No, it is nothing to do with Labour policy—Mr Phil Twyford, is it? Yes.

💬 Phil Twyford: Very good.

Thank you. It is absolutely nothing to do with Labour policy. It is to do with a National Government that has come in and understood the importance of providing a strong law and order service to our communities to make our communities safer. And our communities are feeling safer. They are seeing more police on the beat. They are seeing police response times decreasing. They are seeing cases being investigated and completed in quicker times. They are seeing new initiatives, like the neighbourhood support teams that are going to be out in the communities—what I see as a development of our historical community policing systems. I see a police dog section that is highly motivated and is delivering the best results it ever has. I see a police force that is providing to Kiwis a service that we probably have not seen in the last decade.

I am very proud to be a member of this Government and a member of the National Party. If you go out and talk to the guys in the street and if you go into the mess room and actually have a chat with them, they will tell you they feel supported. They feel that they have a Government that is behind them. They feel that they have a Government and a Minister of Police that are listening to them and resourcing them, and are putting the resources in the right place—on the front line. That is where the resources should be—on the front line, out there protecting and delivering services to our communities.

It is with great pride that I took this call and was able to speak to the performance of our police and the services that are being provided by our police. I was very proud to be a member of the police. I am very proud to see the type of leadership that our Ministers are providing to our police, and I am very proud to see the services that our police service is providing to our community. Thank you very much.

I would have to follow on from Mr Mitchell by saying that I am very proud to be the current Minister of Police. I also want to pay tribute to my colleague the Hon Judith Collins, who was the Minister in charge during the year we are discussing. During that year we saw a significant fall in crime.

💬 Andrew Little: How many boy-racer cars has she crushed?

Well, it is “three strikes and you’re out”. Do not hold your breath too long, but it will come, it will come, I can assure you. During this time, offences per head of population fell 7 percent—25,000 fewer offences. We can talk all we like about offences, but, actually, we are talking about victims. When we talk about 25,000 fewer offences we are talking about a large number of people in our communities who were not victims in that financial year, and that is to be applauded.

The police are working extremely hard and it shows in their public confidence results. Public confidence in the police is on the up. It was at an all-time low, as I understand, under the previous Government. But in this year they were up to 77 percent, and 82 percent of the public were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of service that they received from the police in 2011. That does not happen without a great deal of effort.

The road toll in 2011 was 284 deaths. That is the lowest we have had since 1952. Again, there are a whole lot of reasons for that, like better cars and better design of roads, but a huge amount of effort has been put into road policing by our policemen.

You have to say that during this period of time the police were under enormous demands—enormous demands. We had the Christchurch earthquakes, and police from all over the country went down there. I have read some of the reports of some of the individual efforts, and we had outstanding service from all of those policemen, but from some in particular who were nothing less than heroes and deserve recognition for that. At Pike River, who were the first ones there? Our police force. And of course we had the Rugby World Cup. While those of us who did so enjoyed that wonderful time all around New Zealand and went on fan trails and things, who were the ones who were out there so evidently working so well with the crowds? It was the New Zealand police. They had a fantastically difficult year to face with huge demands on their resources, but they managed to still see a significant drop both in the road toll and in the crime stats.

How is that happening? Well, that is through things like Policing Excellence and Prevention First. They have nothing to do with the previous Government; they have been implemented since this National Government came to pass. They are about making sure that, yes, we have more front-line policing hours, so that we get rid of some of the paperwork, so that we give them modern technology so that they do not have to go back into the office and fill an hour’s worth of forms every time they do something. We must acknowledge that this is the 21st century and that these guys need to have access to firearms. By the end of this financial year, all the cars will have lock boxes. All of that was started during this financial time.

Prevention First is around some old-fashioned policing ideas—that is, you use modern technology to see where the crime is being committed, at what time, and where you need to put your resources in. When I went out with the police in Wellington about a month ago on a Friday night, I was amazed at how many police there were and the spread that they had throughout the downtown central business district. They were making sure they were on the spot stopping crime, stopping incidents from happening through being there and being visible, and using the skills that they have to understand where trouble was going to start. So I want to again take this opportunity—

💬 Andrew Little: How many recruit intakes have you stopped this year?

—to congratulate the New Zealand Police. This year was an astounding year for them. I am not sure what all that nonsense is about, and I would be amazed if there was not a politician in this House who was not convinced that we have the best police force in the world, and wanted to take this opportunity. If that member would just use all that energy to say to these cops: “Thank you for the job you’ve done. You’re doing a great job. You are protecting the city that I am supposed to live in, which is New Plymouth, and let’s have unanimous support for our New Zealand police.”

Report noted.

Ministry of Defence