Tolley Anne: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tolley Anne: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1813. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police) 
: 
 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? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: 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—25000 fewer offences. We can talk all we like about offences but actually we are talking about victims. When we talk about 25000 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? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: —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.