Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20583] 
10.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Is the 111 system inadequate and a risk to public safety; if so what evidence is there for his answer? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 Those were among the findings of the independent external review. The review also noted that all the problems are readily fixable. The Commissioner of Police and the Government accept the findings of the review and the commissioner has committed himself to fully implementing the findings. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Who is responsible for the damning failures identified in the 111 external review? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The Commissioner of Police undertook to bring in overseas experts for the review. The failures are operational concerns and the Commissioner of Police takes responsibility for all operational matters. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Can the Minister tell the House what reports he has seen proposing changes to the 111 system? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: In addition to the independent review report I have also seen a report from May 1999 in which the Police Association revealed proposals of the National Government—in which Tony Ryall was a Minister—to cut 285 non-sworn staff including those who answered 111 calls. 
Ron Mark 
: If it was so apparent to the Minister back in 1999 that problems in the 111 system were left to him if he had received so much advice and information from the Police Association over the last 2 years so many expressions of concern from New Zealand First as to the failings and so much advice from staff in the communications centre who wrote to him personally and he did nothing who accepts the responsibility now for the failures and for the disappearance of Iraena Asher? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The police have apologised to the Asher family and of course the commissioner takes responsibility for operational matters. 
Stephen Franks 
: How on earth can the Minister or any other New Zealander hope for a turn-round in a service we now know was fatally unsafe when the first requirement of leadership is the acceptance of responsibility and neither the Minister nor the commissioner or anyone else from the police has stepped forward to accept responsibility for a disaster we have all been warning them about? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The commissioner has accepted responsibility for the report and for implementing it. 
Tariana Turia 
: Was a 111 call activated on the morning of Sunday 8 May to justify the arrival of a riot squad of 10 police officers storming teenagers outside a party in Otaki and what response would the Minister give to Rev. Ian Campbell who has pointed out that the incident has not done the police relationship with the community much good? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: That raises an operational matter which lies in the domain of the Commissioner of Police. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If the commissioner has accepted the report as the Minister has told the House why is the Minister still in denial describing the 111 system as adequate and of no risk to the public—the direct opposite of what the report concluded? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The report actually states that all the problems are readily fixable. The commissioner has undertaken to put those findings in place and the Government has provided the resources for him to do so. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I seek your intervention. The Minister has not even addressed the question. His shouting the answer that he has given to an earlier answer does not address the question which—unlike many supplementaries—actually followed on from what the Minister said. He said that the commissioner accepted the report. I have asked him how he could stand by that statement considering that the commissioner has told the public of New Zealand that the 111 system is adequate and that it is no risk to the public of New Zealand. That statement is a direct contradiction of the two most important conclusions of the report which the Minister says he accepts. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister in addressing the question did make reference to what was in the report. Obviously there was more than one point in the report so in that sense the Minister did address that question. As we know it may not always satisfy those who hear the answer but it did relate to the question. The fact that it may well be repeating a previous answer does not make it any less valid in that context. 
Tariana Turia 
: How will the Minister address the thuggish actions of the police towards the young people and their parents in Otaki given their over-the-top and unprovoked response to a situation that the police had already intervened in? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I have already told the member that it is an operational matter but if she wants to bring me some facts I will ask the police for replies. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If the overseas reviewers diagnosed major failings in the 111 system after just a handful of visits to the call centres why did neither Mr Robinson nor his senior staff spot the problems? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The very reason that the commissioner called for a review was to have it looked at. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What form of consistency is the Minister now adopting whereby he has just told Tariana Turia that if she gives him some information he will pass it on to the police yet when he was offered information and the same request was made of him in respect of the McNee case which was a murder he refused to do anything at all even to the extent of not passing on information to the police? What standard of consistency is he adopting now? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: There is none. All I would be doing is passing on a letter from the member to the police. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table a report that shows that when Mr Benson-Pope needed a policeman to collect $35 he got a patrol car and officer dispatched to do so. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. It will not be tabled. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table a further document a speech from Helen Clark that assured the nation we would see the ushering in of a new era of accountability. 
Document not tabled.