Brewer Cameron; Mitchell MarkCAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): Thank you Mr Chair. My first question pertains to some worrying numbers and trends in the annual report of the Police 2022-23. Despite victimisations going up nationwide from 155000 to 185000 in that period 2022-23 and given all the increases as the Minister has alluded to in ram raids retail thefts and serious and violent crime is he satisfied that the net gain of full-time constabulary in the Auckland region fell—well there wasn't a net gain at all. Well there was a net gain but not in Counties Manukau. Overall in the region the net gain was just five sworn constables up from 2929 across the Auckland region to 2934 despite the increase in victimisation and the offending as I've outlined. That's my first question and what plans does he have around more police and more presence on the streets of Auckland?My second question follows an appearance to the Justice Committee as Chairperson Meager has pointed out by the Commissioner of Police Andrew Coster. I asked him about the success of the anti-gang policies and overall gang crackdown in Western Australia and Commissioner Andrew Coster said They were quite successful in removing the visible presence of gangs in Western Australia." Does the Minister expect similar success with his anti-gang policies here in New Zealand?Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Thank you Mr Chair. So starting with the last point first yes. A big part of the reason why we want to remove gang patches and insignia is we don't want the public to be exposed to that and we don't want them being visible to the public. The police still know who gang members are—they've got very good intelligence; that's their business. They know who they are but we don't want the public to be exposed to that anymore.In terms of the numbers there's a couple of things that we're doing. Obviously there's a commitment to deliver an additional 500 front-line police officers in the term of this Government—the next two years. The other piece of work that's got going—and it will take a bit of time but we started it—is trying to free up police resource away for example from mental health call-outs and back on their core role.In terms of presence in Auckland one of the things that I was very clear about as the incoming Minister in my letter of expectation is that we start to see more police out on the beat—highly visible developing those relationships with shopkeepers knowing the patch that they're in—and the police are responding well to that from what I understand. I was certainly with Bruce Bird in Waikato the district commander there last week and they have had a big increase in foot patrols in Hamilton. I was in Tauranga the week before—the same. I was talking to some retailers there and they said that it's given them a huge boost of confidence because they're actually seeing beat constables back out doing those foot patrols. It's a similar situation in Auckland.In terms of the numbers I think what that report reflects is the fact that if you go back to the previous Government New Zealand First as a component part of that first Government wanted to deliver an 1800 additional front-line police officers. The target date had to be moved back two or three times—they couldn't actually achieve the numbers—and then when the final numbers were reported to this House as being delivered in actual fact probably maybe 300but possibly as many as 500 of those were authorised officers. Authorised officers have a critically important role to play inside our police service—don't get me wrong on that—but they're not sworn officers out on the street that are able to respond to a member of the public putting their hand up for help.So we've got quite a bit of work to do in terms of being able to free up our police resource and get it back focused on the work they want to do their core role; delivering the additional 500. I think that we will start to see a real difference in terms of visibility in our police actually doing what they want to do best and that is protecting the public they serve."