Burton Mark: Urgent Debates — Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct—Report 
Burton Mark: Urgent Debates — Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct—Report 
[Volume:638;Page:8554] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Dame Margaret Bazley has been a fine servant of this country—a public servant—and I think never more than in the quality depth and thoroughness of the report she has given to us today with all of the challenges that it represents. 
I echo the comment of Mr Dunne who has just resumed his seat. First and foremost we should acknowledge the courage of the women who made this report—and therefore the recommendations arising from it—possible. I refer to the 60 recommendations we have been addressing in the course of this debate this afternoon. I will be addressing in particular the balance of the report’s recommendations—the 12 or so dealing with the Police Complaints Authority. The others have been quite well canvassed by previous speakers. 
 As Minister of Justice I have responsibility for policy and for securing and managing funding for the Police Complaints Authority and of course I am involved in the appointment of its members. The Police Complaints Authority is a critical part of the architecture of providing not only a police service but also the access to a proper complaints process should it be required that is the right of the public of New Zealand. 
The recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct relating to the authority fall broadly into two areas: recommendations relating to the handling of complaints by the authority and those that require legislative change. Briefly 10 of the 12 recommendations deal with improving the authority’s accessibility to people who may wish to make a complaint; developing a communications strategy to increase awareness of the authority; enabling complainants to make submissions and statements orally to the authority; ensuring that the authority has more regular communication with complainants once complaints have been lodged; looking at ways of effecting regular feedback from a sample of complainants partly by way of quality control of the work that is being undertaken; dealing with the backlog of complaints; ensuring that the authority exercises its discretion in favour of accepting historical sexual assault complaints; putting a very tight time limit on taking action in terms of communicating with complainants; removing the discretion in terms of the authority communicating with the Attorney-General and the Minister of Police over any matter where the authority does not believe the police have taken necessary and timely action when recommended to do so; and finally looking at the availability and freedom of information concerning the detail around complaints and that in part requires looking at some of the provisions around privacy of information dealing with individuals. 
Those are a wide range of recommendations and I want to say without ambiguity that all of the recommendations will be actioned. All of the recommendations in the inquiry report dealing with the Police Complaints Authority will be implemented. 
With regard to the recommendations requiring legislative change they will be actioned through amendments to the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill which as members know was put on hold specifically so that any outcome from this inquiry requiring legislative change could be actioned as quickly as possible. Keeping this new legislation effectively ready in the wings has meant that we can now move quickly on the recommendations. The bill provides an appropriate vehicle for implementing these changes; indeed I have already instructed Ministry of Justice officials to develop the appropriate amendments. 
I have discussed with the Police Complaints Authority Justice Goddard those recommendations that are of a more operational nature and focus and I thank Simon Power for his strong endorsement of Justice Goddard and the work she is already doing as the new Police Complaints Authority. I absolutely agree. She has indicated her strong commitment to action these recommendations and work is already under way on a number of them. 
This report provides a clear set of recommendations to strengthen the effectiveness of the authority. Although work has been undertaken to date the Government certainly does intend to make any other changes required to address the issues that the report raises. Similar to the situation with the Commissioner of Police media statements have been made available on a table and members certainly can avail themselves of them. They give more detail of the recommendations concerning the authority and the action that either is being taken or is being proposed to take. 
I also want to touch briefly on additional action that has already been taken that is relevant to some of the issues raised in this report. A team of four investigating officers was established to enable the authority to investigate major matters independently. I think that was an important step and further work needs to be done to advance it. As part of last year’s Budget the authority received additional funding to help address the backlog issue that is identified in this report. Again that work is well under way. That was over half a million dollars of additional funding specifically to target the backlog. 
We also already have mechanisms in place to address some of the quite specific issues raised in the inquiry report. The commission recommends changes to the way that sexual assault complaints are investigated and in addition the resourcing of support groups involved in assessing and supporting complainants. The recently established sexual violence ministerial group and the Task Force for Action on Sexual Violence will take a leading role in recommendations in this area. Again that ministerial group and task force are already established. There has been significant consultation with key sector groups to ensure that the terms of reference of the task force are appropriate and supported by the wider field both governmental and non-governmental. The task force supports the work of the sexual violence ministerial group which I chair as Minister of Justice and also comprises the Minister of Women’s Affairs the Minister for ACC and the Minister of Police. The aim of that task force is to achieve better coordination of responses to sexual violence—a key area of concern addressed in this report. 
Finally later today I will be asking Parliament to support a recommendation to the Governor-General to appoint Acting District Court Judge Michael Lance QC as Deputy Police Complaints Authority which will further enhance the authority’s work and effectiveness. 
I conclude by simply noting that as I said at the start Dame Margaret Bazley has done this country and this Parliament a fine service with the quality depth and thoroughness of this report. She has clearly articulated the issues and yes the failings that need to be addressed. She has made recommendations—60 of them—each of which requires action and it is our job to take that action. This Government will act on all 60 of those recommendations. The police are committed to implementing the change that is required. The Police Complaints Authority is absolutely committed to implementing the recommendations that relate to it. I believe that this report does indeed represent both a dark day but also the beginning of the significant transformation and change that are required. I am confident that the steps are now being put in place to ensure that the recommendations are genuinely implemented and that the oversight of that process will ensure that it is a long-term and sustainable process of change.