Dunne Peter: Policing Bill — First Reading 
Dunne Peter: Policing Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14370] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to indicate its support for the introduction of the Policing Bill and to place on record our admiration and support for the work that the men and women of the New Zealand Police routinely carry out day in day out. 
One of the most telling experiences I can recall with the police occurred one Christmas Day when I was keeping my brother company at his Christchurch radio station. He was doing the shift during the day and nothing else was going on in the city. We were joined by the two young constables who were the only two police in Christchurch on duty that day only to get a phone call from Christchurch Central Police Station asking to speak to the more senior of the two. He took the call and he came back ashen-faced and said: “We have got to go my partner and I have to go out there’s been a road accident and we have to go and explain to a family why their husband and father has been killed on his way home from work with the Christmas presents.” I doubt whether those two young constables would have been much more than in their early 20s yet that was the job they had to do on that Christmas Day. I can tell members that every Christmas Day I think of that occasion and how I am sure it certainly ruined their day not to mention obviously the day of the family who was suffering. But it is just part and parcel of the duty we place on the police and expect them to carry out on our behalf. 
When I look at the explanatory note of the bill I see that the reasons set out as to why it is important to replace the Police Act 1958 are that the current legislation includes “unclear responsibilities and confused lines of accountability: constraints around the ability to place the right people in the right jobs: an overly prescriptive system for managing staff performance and discipline issues: little guidance to work with partner agencies domestically or internationally: few supports to enable the use of modern policing tactics.” When one reflects on the conditions under which the 1958 Act was passed none of those criticisms are at all surprising. Mr Borrows in his opening remarks made a social commentary about the situation of New Zealand in 1958 and some of the customs that occurred around policing at that time. I think it is important to talk about the state of the police in 1958 or immediately beforehand that gave rise to that legislation because that in turn will show how out of date it has become and why the need for change that this bill contains. 
During the 1950s in New Zealand the police were in an even bigger state of crisis than we might imagine them to be as a result of certain activities of late. In 1953 a new police commissioner had been appointed somewhat surprisingly—Commissioner Eric Compton. I think he had jumped from the ranks of the inspectorate straight into the police commissioner’s job because the hierarchy of the police at that time was deemed to be too old. Indeed I recall an account where the existing Commissioner of Police said that his appointment would take place over his dead body and so it proved to be apparently a week later. That was symptomatic of the state of the police then. The problem with Commissioner Compton was that he had a very dubious record in terms of his association with various gambling elements in Wellington. He did not have a particularly good record I understand in terms of the clearance rates of murders in this city. The net effect was a lack of confidence in his appointment—this bold new face for the future—which led to a commission of inquiry that led to his retirement in 1955 and for the first time in the history of the police the appointment of a civilian Controller-General of Police Mr Barnett between 1955 and 1958. 
So it is hardly surprising when one looks at the criticisms of the 1958 legislation to see the comment about unclear responsibilities and confused lines of accountability or an overly prescriptive staff management performance and disciplinary regime. It is a direct product of the culture of the time and the malperformance if one likes of the New Zealand Police at the time that gave rise to that legislation. It is clearly not appropriate in the context of 2008 to be moving down that same path and to be retaining those provisions. 
The 1958 legislation was criticised as having little guidance to work with partner agencies domestically or internationally. Well clearly in 1958 international policing was not an issue. Most travel to New Zealand was by ship. It took days if not weeks if one was coming from Australia. There was certainly not the degree of instant communication and instant movement of criminal elements across the borders then that there is now. Nor in 1958 was there the threat of international terrorism or the need for better intelligence about movements. There certainly was not the drug scourge that we face today and in 1958 the police had only just given up their role in terms of domestic security. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service had been established just a couple of years earlier and the old special branch of the police that was the security service had been either abolished or absorbed within the Security Intelligence Service. 
So the situation that the police have laboured under I think extraordinarily well for the last 50 years has been of a time that is clearly well beyond us. The circumstances of the time the structure of the time and the custom and wider social mores have also moved beyond what was the case in 1958. So it is important to have a review now that this legislation gives effect to that recognises not just those changes but also deals with a number of the recommendations that came out of the Bazley report and a number of the specific instances of police conduct—and I do not mean particularly the recent trials but police conduct more generally—that have arisen over recent years and some of those have been alluded to in the course of the debate already this evening. 
The old notion of the constable on the street corner who was virtually in one’s face—I can remember Constable Ribbons down the road from us with his big wide handlebar moustache who would shoo kids biking on the footpath away by fear and terror—has gone. When one rings the police now it is often difficult to get them to come and respond to an incident unless it is particularly serious. So there are challenges afoot. We all imagine it may be a factor of our growing older that the police seem younger and less experienced today than we remember them being in earlier times— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s not true. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I know it is not true but it is the perception and perception sometimes guides reality. I realise that Dr Mapp has this air of eternal youth about him but it is the reality for a number of other people. We do grow older and we do have differing perceptions. 
Chris Tremain 
: It’s the hair that will tell you. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member raises a good point and he can draw his own conclusion. I think that this bill is timely. I think it does recognise that a number of situations have changed over the years and they need to be accommodated in law. References have been made by Mr Locke and one or two other speakers to the role of the Independent Police Complaints Authority. Again in 1958 when this legislation was put in place or even when the regulations in 1992 were amended the authority was either non-existent 50 years ago or it was in a very different state 15 years ago than is the case now. 
So all these things need to be worked into the environment within which the police operate to make sure that we can give them a legislative framework within which they can continue to do the job we ask them to do in difficult circumstances with confidence and aplomb. I am confident that once this bill is through the select committee we will be satisfied as a Parliament that we have a very robust and sound piece of legislation to work with. 
My only plea in closing is that it is not another 50 years before it is reviewed. I think that the select committee should give some consideration to whether it wants to put either a sunset clause into this legislation or make a very strong recommendation about when it is that the Act as it will become should be reviewed further. It is clearly a nonsense now to be debating a bill that is 50 years old that has well passed its use-by date and to be thinking of putting in place another piece of legislation that unless we are very prudent will have the same logical outcome in due course. I think that is a matter the select committee could consider and like other members I look forward to what the select committee may conclude and to the bill coming back to the House in due course.