Calder Cam: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Calder Cam: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20399] 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a very great pleasure to take a call on the appropriations for Vote Police. In 2008 I was campaigning in the vibrant and diverse area of Manurewa and it was very clear to me in a space of a few minutes that some people living in that community were living in a state of insecurity. I could tell that by the fact they had three locks on the door and on the screen door in front of that there were another couple of locks. 
This Government has listened. We believe that the fundamental duty we owe as a Government to our people is to allow them to live in a state of safety. Our thrust is making our community safe and I congratulate the Minister on doing it so ably. It has certainly worked in Manurewa-Manukau where I have the privilege of being based and of having my office. We have seen a national reduction in crime as the Minister has alluded to but in Counties-Manukau it is even greater. It is over 10 percent. There is an over-10-percent reduction in crime in an area where at the time when I was walking the streets knocking on doors and campaigning sadly and tragically five people lost their lives through crime. Fortuitously fortunately and because of the good work that has been done that is no longer the case. 
We are addressing the drivers of crime with a range of cross-agency initiatives addressing behavioural issues in young people providing educational pathways from school into work and looking to do work on reducing alcohol-related crime which has certainly been a problem across our country. But we also have to give credit for the excellent work that the police are doing and they are doing it knowing they have the full support of this Government. That is something that has come out to me time and time again. We have a very close relationship with the police in Manurewa. I see them on a regular basis and they tell me that they feel 100 percent supported by the Minister of Police and by this Government. 
What are some of the things that we have been doing and the police have been doing? I want to add to the Minister’s congratulations to Peter Marshall. Peter Marshall did a wonderful job as leader of RAMSI the Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands. The leader of the Solomon Islands told me when I was up there visiting as part of the Pacific Mission that they would not have had an election without bloodshed had it not been for the good work of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands and Peter Marshall’s leadership. 
We are very very fortunate to have Deputy Commissioner of Police Mike Bush at Police National Headquarters now because Mike has done some superb work in the Counties-Manukau area. A lot of his work of course will be rolled out nationally. 
I took the opportunity to go out in an incident car quite recently. I was impressed by the professionalism the empathy and the effectiveness of the team. The police have a flexible rostering system. They are working more smartly. They have a flexible rostering system so that they can deploy more police at times when there is greater demand. Of course I chose a Friday night which is regarded as quite a good time to be out and sure enough I saw the police doing a wonderful job. 
One of the first things I saw the police do was deploy that wonderful new tool which has been deployed over 4100 times the police safety order. We were called to a domestic residence. There was a gentleman in a stuporous sleep in a car on the front lawn. There was a concerned wife and child inside and some family members. I was very impressed with the professional way that the constables dealt with the issue. They issued a police safety order so that the gentleman was taken away. At a stroke the family was protected from any possible intimidation violence or harassment and that will last for the length of time the police wrote on the police safety order. It ensures safety for that period of time which will allow time for things to calm down. That action will not result in a conviction but the police safety order is a very clever and elegant tool to address a situation that could have been fraught and dangerous at the time. 
The other thing I would like to tease out a little bit is the neighbourhood policing teams. I concur with the Minister of Police that it is a superb intervention and we have benefited hugely in Manurewa and Manukau from the deployment of six teams. There are another six teams coming so we will have 12 teams in total as well as the 18 further teams rolled out across the country so that is 30 teams in all. I went out with one in my community. 
Vote agreed to.