Fairbrother Russell: Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fairbrother Russell: Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:641;Page:11533] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I take up the point made by Dr Richard Worth who has argued—as others have—that the amended Police Complaints Authority which will now be known as the Independent Police Conduct Authority should include a prison complaints system. It is clearly not a serious suggestion. If it is a serious suggestion then it is one that should be considered further by Dr Worth before he advances it any further. 
There is a fundamental difference between the role of the police and the role of the prison service. The police are an investigative authority—that is they are the hard edge of relationships between the citizen and the State. The police have an obligation to investigate complaints in a fearless way. The cutting edge of the Police Complaints Authority—as it is presently called—and the new authority after it is renamed is to reconcile the conflicts that occur during a rigorous investigation process bearing in mind at all times the fundamental rights of any citizen of a democracy to be protected from the overbearing conduct of a Government or State agency. 
An authority that relates to an investigative process is a completely different animal from an authority that relates to a custodial process because a prison authority’s major function is that of custody. Its job is not to investigate but to hold in safe custody those persons sent to it by our judicial process. The relationship between a prison inmate and the prison officers is entirely and fundamentally different from the relationship between a suspect a person being investigated or a person being arrested and police officers. It would be a recipe for disaster as we try to refine and strengthen the Police Complaints Authority to confuse the picture by marrying together two disparate conceptual functions. Although there may be merit in many years’ time for a large authority that deals quite separately with these two different functions as the role of the Police Complaints Authority evolves into the standard that is now being set by the Independent Complaints Authority Amendment Bill we must move carefully to make sure that the good work that has occurred slowly since the first Police Complaints Authority was set up in 1988 evolves into a very effective watchdog over the police but is not a hindrance to their operation. 
Moving to the thoughtful comments made behind the proposed amendment by the Maori Party suggesting that there be a separate branch of the Police Complaints Authority for complaints from Maori I can say that on first reading that suggestion finds considerable sympathy. In my experience of 25 or 30 years of dealing with the police most of the people who the police dealt with were Maori. There was an attitude—certainly 10 or 15 years ago—that was quite racist. It was perhaps not deliberately so but it was institutionalised racism. The position of Maori suspects was often hugely inferior to the position of Pakeha suspects. 
I have detected a change in that attitude in recent times. I think in a large part that is because there are a number of very very good Maori officers—both frontline and behind the scenes—who act as iwi liaison officers. That is having an effect among the community of changing the profile of the police. It also has a symbiotic effect on the police force themselves so that they are aware of the different cultural norms that exist in our two major cultures in this country Maori and Pakeha. The Police Complaints Authority must reconcile those changing norms and be able to breed a culture that instinctively understands the different values and norms that go with two separate parts of one country and one society. 
I think that the effect of the amendment proposed by the Maori Party would be to create differences where there should not be differences and to weaken the cogency of the Police Complaints Authority. The authority would become sensitive in areas where it needs expertise and professionalism rather than a fear to tread because it might be overlapping in a different area of responsibility. I agree that there is a need that should be addressed by the Police Complaints Authority. I agree that for a long time the way the police have handled Maori has led to justifiable criticism. But I do not believe that the answer is to have a separate authority because it would seem to lead to divisive conduct when we have police officers who are becoming more rounded and more sympathetic to both the major cultures.