Nash StuartHon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I feel very privileged to say that I'm the Minister of Police—one of the best police services in the world one of the least-corrupt police services in the world.We love coalition politics because under the Labour - New Zealand First coalition agreement we have promised to deliver 1800 more police into our communities. Let me know where this has come from—let me know where this has come from. It's from a whole lot of conversations that Darroch Ball New Zealand First MPs and Labour MPs have had in our communities with people who are concerned about law and order in our neighbourhoods in our communities. We decided we needed to do something about this.Let me tell you something about the New Zealand police force and the latest workplace survey. Over 80 percent of the men and women who serve in our service said that they were totally committed to the New Zealand police service and they value and love the communities they serve. But over 60 percent of those men and women who filled out the survey said that they experience undue workplace stress and that they weren't delivering on the promises they were making to their communities.In a nutshell what we've got is some very committed men and women who value the job value the communities but just know they're not resourced to do the job that needs to be done. This is why Labour and New Zealand First have said We've got to deal with this." So we are putting more police on the streets in our communities than has ever been done before—about 20 percent more police into our neighbourhoods. This is the biggest increase in the history of the New Zealand Police.Let me tell you a couple of things about the New Zealand Police. They have a Prevention First operating model. It is absolutely fantastic. It is a sea change to the way that they do things out there. They're about preventing crime. Mr Bishop the target you talk about—a reduction in serious crime—still exists. It is still there. We are not removing that whatsoever. What we are doing is we're going out there. We're working with our communities to prevent crime. The last thing the police want to do is put people in jail. What they do want to be doing is working with our communities with the agencies making sure that people don't end up in jail. There are some fantastic programmes that our police service is running to ensure this happens.Let me tell you a couple of things about our police service as well. In the last 10 years they have implemented 47 specific recommendations for change. There has been a sea change in the culture of New Zealand's police service. Mr Bishop is worried about the new recruits coming through. I can assure him that I have been to all but one graduation since I have been the Minister and the new recruits are first class. In fact the number of people we're getting into the service who have university degrees who have worked overseas and who have wide experience has increased substantially. One thing that we're working incredibly hard on is ensuring that our police service represents the diverse communities that it serves. Last year we celebrated 75 years of women in the police. Now we're not where we want to be—ideally we want to be at 50 percent—but the New Zealand police service is working incredibly hard to get those figures up. This is an organisation which I believe is incredibly well run. The commissioner has a vision for where the New Zealand Police wants to be and we buy into it 100 percent. I am forever grateful and I think as New Zealanders we should be grateful for the men and women who are out there doing the sorts of jobs that we wouldn't want to do.Last year there were 27000 general mental health call outs that the police had to respond to. There were 20300 attempted suicide events that they had to attend; so they've changed the programme. In the past they had three hours on how to deal with mental health; now in the Police College there are 50 hours on how to deal with mental health call outs. This is a service that's responding to the needs of our community. Last year $300 million worth of assets were restrained $168 million forfeited. Last year the New Zealand police service dismantled 10 significant transnational crime groups operating in New Zealand and preying on our communities.The last thing I would like to say is that we are rolling out 1800 police because we think this is the right thing to do and it needs to be done. Mr Bishop talked about the cost; well this is coming in the Budget but let me tell you that we believe the New Zealand Police service disrupted about $1.6 billion worth of harm in our communities. So when the member says "How much does it cost?" I say "Not enough.""