Dean Jacqui: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12147. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee):The Minister in the chair Jonathan Coleman was right in his earlier intervention when he noted that it was a strong focus of this Government to move resources out of the back room and on to the front line. It is true in terms of the New Zealand Defence Force but it is also true in terms of the New Zealand Police.The Prevention First strategy is working extremely well in New Zealand. Crime is down. One of the most important features of the Prevention First strategy is that policing is now different. Gone are the days when the police constable sat behind a desk in a small suburban or small rural watch-house waiting for business to come to them using their own cellphones in latter years to take calls if they did happen to be out in the squad car and responding normally after an event had occurred—after a citizen had phoned because they were feeling a bit insecure in their home and then waiting waiting waiting for the police to take a note of it or having to go into the police station and wait for some response after the event.I want to give a couple of examples of how Prevention First is working for New Zealanders. One of them is the example of a lady who came to see me in my electorate office—an older lady. She was cooking her dinner at 6.30 in the evening. It is dark these days and there was a knock on her door. She looked through the curtain to see who was out there and she saw one man there—a large man. She asked him to identify himself. She was not happy with the response he gave so she declined to open the door and told him to go away. She was very upset and worried about this and so she rang her neighbours and yes this man had knocked on their doors as well. She was then advised to ring the police. She did that she noted her concerns that she felt unsafe for herself and her neighbours and she hung up the phone. She went into her sewing room got one of those wooden rulers that older folk will remember and started fitting it into herranchslider to make her house more secure. She looked up and there was a constable looking in through theranchslider at her. He had got the call from the station. He had come directly around to her place and he had got himself in and said “Right let’s have a look at your security in your home.” He did that he visited the neighbours she felt more secure her neighbours felt more secure—that is Prevention First at work.The second example I want to talk about is the use of technologies. There has been a major roll-out ofiPads tablets andiPhones. So the constable from the Geraldine Police Station—another part of my area—no longer sits at his desk waiting for the phone to ring and for business to come to him. He puts hisiPad under one arm he puts his iPod in his top pocket he starts walking down the streets of Geraldine and he talks to people. People come up to him pass the time of day pass comment and you know share their concerns with him. He is out there doing what a good policeman should do and that is Prevention First. It is getting in front of the crime in New Zealand which is why crime numbers are dropping significantly in New Zealand.This change in policing that is having such a good effect on crime in New Zealand and making people feel safer in their homes—which in my view is very important—seems to have escaped some members of the Law and Order Committee who seem to still be of the view that neighbourhood police stations which are visited by a member of the public once or even twice a day or even less should continue to be manned. Let us have a choice here. Should we have neighbourhood police stations which are hardly ever used with the police constable sitting in there waiting for the customer to come to them? Or should we have proactive members of the police out and about armed with the technologies they need to do their work so that they can not only respond immediately as people need them out in the community—they can be visible out in the community—but also do their work out in the community? To me it is a complete nonsense to hang your hat on the number—