Andersen GinnyPoliceGINNY ANDERSEN (Chairperson of the Justice Committee) (remote): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Look it's a great opportunity to recap briefly on the main issues covered by the Justice Committee. We covered to start with the role of the New Zealand Police in terms of their role to provide those services that the public value so much including keeping the peace maintaining public safety law enforcement and also crime prevention. But its role also includes community support and reassurance national security participating in policing activities outside of New Zealand and also emergency management. In 2021 we heard how the Police's role was highlighted by the need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall in terms of expenditure for 2020 to 2021 Police's total operating revenue was $2.143 billion which is approximately 1.42 percent more than the previous year's spend. In terms of the audit results received by the Auditor-General there was a statement issued that the standard audit report for Police was satisfactory with the quality of financial statements. The Auditor-General assessed the Police's management control environment as very good making no recommendations for improvements in that space.Some of the main issues that were touched on were the changing nature of gang crime in New Zealand and members specifically asked questions around the nature of organised criminal groups and also gun crime. It was interesting to note that Police stated that the gang environment has changed significantly due to the return of section 501 offenders who have been deported from Australia. The 501 offenders are often associated with the Australian criminal underworld. Their arrival has resulted in the seeding of additional organised criminal groups and has replicated the Australian criminal environment in New Zealand. Police stated quite clearly that they are now charging gang members at a higher rate than they have in the past. They told committee members that the rate of charging gang offenders where an offence had been identified is at approximately 92 percent as opposed to previously which was around the 80 percent mark. In particular they referenced Operation Tauwhiro and how it had had an impact on gun crime. Operation Tauwhiro is a nationwide programme aimed at targeting illegal firearm use by gangs and other organised criminal syndicates. We heard that in the year under Police review Police seized 1287 firearms and arrested 1151 people through this operation.Alongside of Tauwhiro we heard of operations such as Mist which specifically tackle the importation of illicit drugs. This recent 10-month – long operation had targeted a syndicate seeking to import drugs into New Zealand from Colombia and resulted in 50 kilograms of cocaine being seized. Police told us that an interesting feature of this syndicate was its low profile. Syndicate members had not been driving luxury cars or wearing gang patches and there was little surface evidence of their illegal activities. Police explained that this put into context the need not to focus solely on gangs when targeting drug trade. They noted that 90 percent of those charged with importing manufacturing or dealing methamphetamine were not gang-affiliated.We also heard about improving the front-line safety of staff with Police allocating $45 million towards improving the safety of front-line officers including the new funding of tactical response models. I will touch on also the improvements that Police have taken to police recruitment. The Government has committed to increasing the number of front-line police by 1800 extra officers. Of these officers 700 will be specifically dedicated to combatting the rise of organised crime. We asked how many of the 700 for organised crime had been filled. Police believe that they are on track to have the full quota of 1800 extra officers deployed by 2023. They noted that the experience of some of the setbacks is a result of higher attrition which has moved around quite a bit because of COVID and the impacts that has made. They'd also noted that the diversity of police has increased as a result of the increased recruitment and we asked to note how this had been impacted. Police told us that more than 50 percent of those recruited to meet their 1800 new officers are women.To wind up we also heard in detail of Te Aorerekura a new approach to family harm that was making positive inroads in this space. We also heard about the new Te Pae Oranga rolling out across the country which aimed to target and prevent lower-level offending being referred to the mainstream justice by instead referring to iwi justice panels. Those in total were the main areas covered by the Justice Committee. Thank you.