Mitchell Mark; Hipkins ChrisHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): In relation to numbers Minister what is his commitment and what is his view—and I understand that he's just been on a road trip around the country as I have. There are proposals currently under way in some districts to reduce numbers in outstations and I think that one of the most effective policing models is to have police in their communities. In fact if it was up to me we'd be going back to basics and we'd be seeing a lot more beat constables out there in retail areas building relationships with shop owners gathering intelligence and actually having that trusted relationship. Unfortunately at the moment they're almost stretched to breaking point because of all the crime and all the social issues that they are swamped with and having to deal with. But it would be a huge retrograde step Minister to start to see staff pulled out of rural or smaller stations. Has he had any information on that and what is his commitment as the Minister in this Budget to ensuring that our smaller outstations continue to be manned at their present levels? In fact in my view they should be doing a review in terms of increasing police officers.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): I thank the member for the patsy question because I have seen some data on that in fact that shows the number of outstations and smallest police stations that were closed predominantly during the tenure of the last National Government as a cost-cutting measure because Police's funding was not keeping up with the increasing pressure that police were facing. I have several of them in my own electorate that were closed during the tenure of the last Government. Now I looked closely at that and one of the arguments that the police have made—it was an operational decision from the police to close those outstations—is that they would actually rather have the police out and about than sitting in a small isolated area often by themselves. It's better to have the police out on the road in a car than sitting in what is effectively an office waiting for people to come to them. I actually think that operationally that's a good decision for the police to take.Similar debates are happening around the country when it comes to police station opening hours. Now police can wait at the police station for people to come to them or they can go out and they can actually respond to callouts. They can go find bad guys and that's actually what I think the police should be doing. So where the police have done analysis that shows that they were getting very very few people walking in during certain hours and have made the decision to adjust their police station hours accordingly in order to free up extra police resource to get them out on to the beat I actually think that that is a welcome process that police have been engaged with and rather than attacking the police for that I think we should welcome the fact that they are making sure that they are getting the most productivity out of the police staff. But when I talk to police the last thing they want to be doing is spending unnecessary amounts of time sitting somewhere in an office or in a police station when they can be out and about doing the job that they are passionate about.Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): I don't think the Minister fully understands the concept of it: just because you have for example a rural station that might have three police officers stationed there it doesn't mean that they're sitting in the station all day. They're actually out working—they're actually out in the community. I asked the Minister very clearly: are there any plans to reduce numbers around the country at those outstations and pull them back into a central station in a central role—because fundamentally I agree with them. I know that there were stations closed and a lot of them were kiosks and there was a review done around that. Fundamentally my core belief is that you should have as many police out in the community as you can. So I'm asking the Minister—and I'd like him to respond because I've also been out and about and I have had information come back to me that I don't think is good. We are going to be heading in the wrong direction and there's going to be a reduction in numbers at outstations. So could he please stand and give this committee—he's just made a big speech about how important it is to have these stations and he lost the ones in his own area. Stand up now as the police Minister and make that commitment and say that at least the current staffing numbers at the moment in these stations will remain and that they will not be reduced.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): What I can give the member an absolute commitment on is that this Government will continue to increase resources to the police so that they don't have to reduce the number of kiosks and outstations as they had to do under the last Government in order to make ends meet effectively. What the police do in terms of reviewing where they position people is an operational matter for the commissioner and for the people who work under the commissioner and I'm not going to interfere in that. But I am absolutely confident that the processes the police have in place in terms of deciding where to deploy additional resource are robust ones.