Ryall Tony: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19491] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 Part of this financial review process involves various select committees hearing evidence from Government departments and the Audit Office in respect of the performance of Government departments. As a result of those select committee considerations reports are prepared that are tabled in the House. I would like the Minister of Police to take a call and tell us whether he actually read the 2003-04 financial review of the New Zealand Police. 
I ask that question because there are some very important features of this report that the Minister needs to be aware of as the comments that are of concern in those reports were unanimous comments. Even the Government members of the Law and Order Committee endorsed the comments that the committee made about the Minister’s department and the handling of the 111 system. 
I would like the Minister to take a call. It is important because those members are the people in the Labour Party who influenced those who ranked the Minister in the list-ranking procedure. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not think that is a laughing matter. The Minister may think it is a laughing matter but I did not think his ranking was suitable. I thought No. 25 was a completely unwarranted position for the Minister of Police—completely unwarranted. No. 35 might have been better. 
But I wonder whether the Minister did read this report which was agreed to by Labour members of the committee. It states: “We are concerned that these statistics show that the communication centres may not be sufficiently resourced or may not be deploying resources appropriately to manage within target performance times the volume of calls being directed to them.” Another comment was also agreed to by the Labour members: “We have previously raised concerns with the police about staffing pressures at the Southern Communication Centre in particular but were assured that the number of staff at the time was adequate.” I paraphrase the next statement: On the basis of past experience some of us remain unconvinced that the Southern Communication Centre is adequately staffed. The report states further that: “Some of us are also concerned about the alleged difficulty encountered by some 111 callers in convincing communication staff that they are in genuine need of urgent help.” Those comments were all made in a report that members of the Minister’s party agreed to. Georgina Beyer Martin Gallagher Ann Hartley— 
Ron Mark 
: Mahara Okeroa. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
:—and Mahara Okeroa were all members of the select committee that agreed to those comments. They also made the point that they were disappointed with the various response times. 
So I ask the Minister of Police to take a call and say whether he read that report because the report—if he had read it—could have saved him a lot of grief. If he had read it he would have seen that his own colleagues were saying that real alarm bells were ringing about his performance in securing resources for the 111 system in order to provide decent public safety. 
It is a major issue. I know that it must be an embarrassment to the Minister to have to come to this Chamber day in and day out and make excuses for his non-performance and for the fact that he never asks the basic questions—questions like: “Well if there are these many unallocated files in this district how many are there in other areas of New Zealand?”. Was that question asked? It does not appear to have been. We have never heard basic questions like: “Are we maintaining the number of staff that we need in the 111 centres?” and “Are we maintaining the number of staff that we had before Iraena Asher disappeared?”. They are basic questions that a Minister of Police should ask but we have never heard them from this Minister of Police. 
Therefore we end up with a report a financial review that I can directly refer to in this debate which states that: “… statistics show that the communication centres may not be sufficiently resourced …”. We know that the outcome of the review must be that the Commissioner of Police is brought in. We know that that must be the outcome because we know that the Minister was told by the commissioner that there were insufficient resources in the 111 centre to maintain the sort of standard that the public expect from the New Zealand Police. 
I ask then that the Minister take a call to explain his stewardship of this portfolio and his handling of the police request for additional 111 resources. Those requests will see the light of day in the course of this debate.