8. Question No. 8—PoliceHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of PoliceQuestion No. 8—Police8. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Yes.Hon Ginny Andersen: Which Minister in the Government has primary responsibility for delivering 500 police officers within two years?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Myself as the police Minister.Hon Ginny Andersen: Why then did his office inform the Herald that Casey Costello holds—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Sorry just start again. There will be silence when people ask a question.Hon Ginny Andersen: Why then did his office inform the Herald that Casey Costello holds responsibility for delivering 500 in two years?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Because the Hon Casey Costello is my associate and she is assisting me as part of her delegation in the delivery of the 500 and I think it's a fair recognition of her that the last 1800 was a great New Zealand First policy and the next 500 is another great New Zealand First policy.Hon Ginny Andersen: Will he confirm and put on the record that the response his office gave to the Herald—that Casey Costello held primary responsibility for delivering the 500 in two years—was incorrect and false?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well I think the member is getting a bit hung up on the word primary"—[Interruption] I can assure her that myself and my very competent associate will be working together to deliver the 500 police officers over the next two years.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister how long did it take him to authenticate that they're not 1800 but that the 2338 extra police officers was in fact New Zealand First work and not Labour's as they claimed?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well that's a very good question. Labour claimed New Zealand First policy of 1800 additional police officers—Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Yeah I know where you're going to go. Just make your point of order.Hon Kieran McAnulty: Thank you Mr Speaker. The question in itself it is questionable whether that was in order—whether there is ministerial responsibility on which party claimed success for what and whether that is accurate or not clearly isn't the responsibility of the police Minister. And immediately upon attempting to answer it it was straight into—against the ruling that you made to this House just earlier this week.SPEAKER: That's right but the question though was in order because it asked him about how long it had taken him to assess which is not an unreasonable question. Words matter if I may quote one of your former colleagues. And on the answer it's not appropriate to start out with an attack on a previous Government. But it is OK to reflect upon the content of the question.Hon MARK MITCHELL: It didn't take me very long at all to understand who was responsible for the policy around the 1800 additional police officers for our police service and it didn't take me long to understand and work out that in fact they only delivered 1500 because 300 were authorised officers.Hon Ginny Andersen: Does he agree with Police advice released under the Official Information Act that retaining non-sworn staff will be important and necessary in order to deliver 500 police within two years?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes I agree. Non-sworn staff have a critically important role to play in the Police.Hon Ginny Andersen: Will he commit to not cutting or reducing any non-sworn roles within Police this financial year and next financial year in order to enable police to deliver a 6.5 percent cut and also make sure the 500 are delivered?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well firstly it's not a 6.5 percent cut. As an incoming Government it became obvious—although we had very clear ideas—that the previous Government has left a shambles behind. You are economic—or the previous Government are economic vandals.Hon Dr Megan Woods: You can't say "you" Mark. Learn the rules.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well the previous Government—Megan Woods might get upset about it but the fact of the matter is you've been economic vandals. The books are a shambles so what we've had to do as the incoming Government—and we've been very clear. We've been very clear with our chief executives including the commissioner as we've asked him to go and look for where there are savings because the country accepts the fact that under the previous Government there has been a bloated bureaucracy an enormous amount of investment not much to show for it and actually we are being responsible with taxpayers' money. Now in terms of the Police we're being very clear that we're going to be focused on delivering stronger better front-line services that actually provide better services to the members of the public as they should expect.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister going to take and has he been advised to take a very practical common-sense experienced view to his administration rather than dreaming the pie in the sky stuff?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Good question. Yes—SPEAKER: It should be a very brief answer I think.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Good. That's enough. Well done.Hon Ginny Andersen: Is it true that Winston Peters called you and asked you to take back the responsibility and not delegate it?Hon MARK MITCHELL: That is absolutely not true.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. Mr Speaker if we're going to have people getting up and talking about how this House should be run in question time asking a question without any authority or any record or any authenticity is just plain outside of Standing Orders. And therefore I'm raising a point of order to ask her to apologise for that.SPEAKER: Well given the tenor of the day that is probably—well hang on a minute.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I beg your pardon? SPEAKER: No hold on—wait on.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I want two apologies now.SPEAKER: Well I tell you we'd be here all day apologising if every member wanted to be apologised to. Can I just say while the question itself might have been wide it is in line with the opening question which was does he stand by all his statements and actions? So the question is OK."