Clendon DavidDAVID CLENDON (Green): This is a very unfortunate bill. The Greens like our Labour colleagues have opposed it from the beginning and will continue to do so. Fundamentally this bill threatens—and I used that word advisedly—to change the relationship between New Zealanders and our police force in an adverse way. It is the thin edge of the wedge of commercialising the services that police provide for us. We are told that specifically this vetting charge is in response to what is perceived to be a private benefit; I do not accept that argument for a moment. If our wonderful police officers around Northland continue to do their jobs well and get on the streets and keep the rascals on their toes then it is less likely my house will be burgled and that is a direct private benefit to me. There is a much greater public good in having a peaceful and a safe community. The private benefit that accrues to me and to all of us individually—we already pay for that; it is called tax. I know some of our friends on the National ranks might think tax is actually a four-letter word but I think paying for public sector services through tax is a pretty robust model and I am very happy to see that continue. I think that to isolate a single State agency like Police for a single amount in a little bit of a private sector market-driven sort of approach is a very unfortunate and backward approach. The introduction to the bill talks about the need to alleviate strain on police resources". There is no question that Police resources are extremely stretched and under pressure. Effectively it has gone on a flat budget. Its income has been flat for some 7 to 8 years. The calculation given to us was that between 2010 and about last year the Police had something like a $90 million cut in real terms. At the last Budget it got a small extra amount to pay a long-overdue quite modest pay increase which was welcomed but again I stress it was probably overdue in terms of maintaining morale within the Police. At best you could see this bill as a short-term stop-gap measure to try to drive a little bit more money into the coffers to try to enable the police to do their job. The fact is that the police have found efficiencies through technology and through changing the way they manage their human and other resources but the fact is there is a limit to how much and how far you can squeeze or stretch a dollar. This bill as I say could be seen as a stop-gap measure—just a short-term grab for a little bit more income—but more cynically I think that in the longer term it is setting up a situation where charging for police services will become more commonplace. We have started out with this business of vetting and I do follow Mr Faafoi's commentary about the cost. I distinctly remember at the Law and Order Committee that the figure of $7 was the figure we were working to. We were told quite recently at the second reading by the Minister of Police that actually it will be $8.50. That is a 20 percent increase before the bill has even escaped from the House. And following Mr Faafoi's comments if it was talked about as $5 that is actually a 70 percent increase since it was first proposed. How much further do we go? Internationally a figure of $50 is not uncommon. OK even if it is $8.50 or it doubles to 15 or 16 bucks that will not hurt any of us in this House if we choose to undertake a vetting process for whatever reason but we have got to remember that the people who are going to actually apply to be vetted are often in the community voluntary sector. It is all very well to give an agency a waiver but one should also consider the level of bureaucracy and cost in administering those waivers. But do we really want to punish people—members of the community who put their hand up to give back to their community by assisting at a local early childhood facility or by working in a hospice as a volunteer? Anywhere people are working with vulnerable members of the public—that is where they will be hit. You get a person on a low income or a fixed income—if they choose to work in one or two different agencies perhaps at an early childhood centre and at a school or whatever it might be they will need to get a vet for each of those functions. They will have to go through the process each time they want to offer service. So we are actually putting a financial penalty on people who want to contribute their time to community well-being. I think that is a very perverse message to give members of the public: "Thank you for your contribution; now here is the bill." And is that not a roundabout way—it is a money-go-round effectively. It is taking money out of the pockets of members of the public who are wanting to do the right thing—wanting to contribute their time—and handing that to the police. We should remind ourselves that actually the numbers involved are relatively small in the scheme of things. If you look at the overall Police budget the few millions of dollars that this might raise are actually very small beer. As I have said weigh that against the precedent it sets—that we are going to have a commercial relationship with our police force rather than one built on trust and built on a shared commitment to a safe community. It is a very unfortunate and a very slippery slope we are heading down I believe. Following the select committee I made the point in our minority report on the bill that we did anticipate that the cost would go up over time. I think we did not anticipate it would go up quite as quickly and quite so much—as I say at least 20 percent before the bill has even escaped the House. At the moment the target of this bill is the vetting of people who want to work with vulnerable people but I guess the message to other organisations and to other community sectors is: be afraid—for example with sports. Yes police do routinely turn up at sporting events be they large or small. Is the sporting sector the next to be in the crosshairs and to have extra cost imposed on it? Again it is an area with a lot of public benefit as well as private benefit. Mr Faafoi does make a fair point that yes when there is a significant sporting event at the Cake Tin or anywhere else that does impose cost on the police force. And there is an argument that says: "Yes maybe they should be able to clip the promoter's ticket." But then how far do you go with that? If you have a major sporting event your expectation is that you will also get more traffic on the road on a given afternoon or evening. Do you send for cost recovery for the extra road policing that would be required? Do you add the cost of the likelihood that there will be a few more people partying up in Courtenay Place in the unlikely event that the Hurricanes have a win at the Cake Tin for example? Where do you draw those boundaries? Is it not better to simply bring the boundaries right back to where they belong and to say: "We will resource the police properly through Vote Police. That is where its income comes from and it will disperse that operationally in the way that it sees fit." We do not see any positive future in the idea of a commercial relationship. The other area I would point to that does undoubtedly impose significant financial cost on police is in search and rescue. We live in a beautiful country. It is also a country that takes no prisoners. If people are a little bit careless in the outdoors—in the mountains and out on boats—then the likelihood is that they can come to grief occasionally through carelessness and just as often simply through unexpected or unpredictable weather events or whatever it might be. Do we really want to see a situation where New Zealanders or indeed our tourists—our visitors—are discouraged from engaging with our beautiful outdoor environments for fear that if they get lost or require some assistance they are going to be looking down the barrel of a significant bill from their friendly local boys and girls in blue? I think that would be a very unfortunate outcome but it is a very predictable one because search and rescue does not come cheaply. It takes a great deal of cost and police time to administer involving their own officers to organise volunteers in civil defence and the like and I think that it would be a likely target if we go down this road of charging for police service. I will not labour the point except simply to say that we think this bill is ill-conceived it is the wrong model and we continue to oppose it. Thank you."