Ryall Tony: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19488] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 While Parliament sits tonight the police face the most major crisis of public confidence that they have faced certainly in the last 5 years. These matters were raised this year under financial review and the Government ignored them. Since the beginning of October we have seen a never-ending series of scandals and bad administration within the New Zealand Police 111 service which this Minister of Police has overseen. 
These very basic questions need to be answered by the Minister. How many extra staff did the police ask for for the 111 control centres? We do not want to know how many the Minister thinks they asked for; we want to know how many they did ask for. We want to know why this Minister has never asked what happened to the staff numbers in the three 111 emergency call centres throughout this country. Since the month before Iraena Asher disappeared the number of call takers in the 111 centres dropped and it has dropped every month since. That is appalling. Can this Minister take a call and explain why under his stewardship of the police portfolio we have the outrageous situation where members of the public think they dial 111 for a taxi and think they need to dial 111 and scream to get some action? Why do they now have to dial 111 five times to report a drunken driver? The Government and the 111 system are unable to cope. 
This Minister’s stewardship is a failure. It is a failure because he is charged with being Minister of Police to secure the resources necessary for the police to provide the service that the people of New Zealand expect. It is clear that he has failed to do that. Day after day we see him stand in Parliament and tell the country that he has secured the resources and that the police are adequately staffed. Yet television has now shown the Commissioner of Police finally abandoning the Minister’s mantra and saying that yes he has asked for more police and yes he needs more police. It is quite clear that the Government has ignored the commissioner’s requests and the consequences are being visited upon ordinary New Zealanders. 
This Minister of Police has stood in the House and said that women are more concerned about traffic tickets than they are about violent crime. This Minister says that New Zealand women are more concerned about speeding than they are about violent crime and being bashed in their homes. This man does not deserve to have the stewardship that the financial review would indicate. Right to the heart of this debate is the resourcing of the communication centres which this House has raised time and time again. We have raised concerns not only about the police management of the 111 calls and the resourcing of the communication centres but also about simple issues like the training and supervision of call takers and the response times not meeting their targets. 
What people do not realise—or maybe they do—is that in most regions of New Zealand it is taking longer and longer for the police to respond to 111 crises. In fact the television news today reported that the police are chronically understaffed. That is asserting in people’s minds— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: What happened to the 540 police you were going to cut? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: This is the Minister of Corrections whose appalling maladministration of expenditure of his department will be shown in the next few days. Mr Mark nods because he knows exactly what we will be talking about next week. I reckon that instead of talking about the scandals in the police they will be talking about what that Minister knew about spending in his department and the consequences that that has had.