Woodhouse Michael: Urgent Debates — Roast Busters Case—Independent Police Conduct Authority ReportText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Urgent Debates — Roast Busters Case—Independent Police Conduct Authority Report[Sitting date: 19 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2444. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Police): On matters that generally require an urgent debate there is perhaps a history of contradiction across the House in defence and counter-thrust when we have these sorts of debates. I find myself in the unusual position as the first responder on behalf of the Government to agree with just about everything that the Labour spokesperson on justice has articulated in her intervention—not all and I will go into a couple of those details. It really is difficult to candy coat the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s investigation into complaints regarding Roast Busters.I just want to contextualise the events that led to the setting up of Operation Clover in the authority’s review of police’s behaviour because Ms Ardern did talk about the role in this of the former Minister of Police Anne Tolley and the fact that there was perhaps some defence of the police’s actions by the then Minister of Police in respect of the investigations and the knowledge the police had and indeed there was. But it is why I wanted to contextualise it. The same information deficit led Mrs Tolley quite rightly to act on the information provided to her by the police and the police let her down by failing to provide that information to her. They had not collected the information in the manner and by the means that would have enabled them to respond quickly when the Roast Busters case became public. I think that is symptomatic of the failures that the Independent Police Conduct Authority report has highlighted.As I say there is simply no candy coating it. Ms Ardern has outlined a reasonably accurate time line of the events that led to where we are today and I want to note firstly that those general duties officers who first responded to complaints in the earlier investigations that are described in the authority’s report acted properly and promptly. They referred those cases to the very team that had been set up in the Waitematā district to deal with just these sorts of cases and it was the child protection team officers who for a number of reasons I will elaborate on dropped the ball—big time. The authority’s summary in paragraph 116 I think sums up the essence of the failures: “Indeed the issues were such that it is unlikely they could ever have been dealt with meaningfully and effectively solely by Police. Regrettably Police had numerous opportunities to ‘connect the dots’ earlier to generate a more organised expansive and cohesive response and to work in collaboration with CYF the schools and the parents of these young men to prevent their behaviour from continuing.” That to me is at the heart of this failure.What is most disappointing to me as the Minister of Police is that that revelation is against the backdrop of what I think has actually been really really good progress by police through their Prevention First and their Policing Excellence programmes which were set up by Minister Tolley when she was police Minister. That has led to really really good outcomes and improvements—reductions in crime reductions in repeat offending—and increases in reporting in terms of family and sexual violence which is really hard to be very sure about. But I am pretty confident that actually what that is about is a greater level of confidence and support for young women to speak up over this offending. I hope that is the case. I do not think we are seeing a greater incidence of offending and as we know the rate of speaking up is still unacceptably low. We need to make sure firstly that we prevent these offences from occurring and encourage young women to speak up when they do confident that they will be treated with respect listened to and believed.What worries me about this and this report is that it has the potential to set us back which I noted in my questioning of the New Zealand Police through Police Commissioner Bush and his team. Naturally anybody receiving a report like this will accept its findings and work hard to ensure that the actions need to be put in place. But there is a deeper requirement going on here. I need to be sure of whether this is a systemic issue and a failure of the system or a disappointing exception to a general trend of increasing support for victims of these crimes and one that needs to be remedied and is being remedied already. It was with that in mind that I took the findings of the authority’s report and worked with police to understand three things.Firstly what confidence can the New Zealand public have that should similar complaints be laid tomorrow they would be treated differently and taken seriously? Secondly does this reflect a culture of ambivalence within the police towards sexual assault complaints? Thirdly what can we do as a community? It is a community problem requiring a community and Government response to provide our young people with better guidance skills and support around appropriate sexual conduct. That last point I think is probably for me as a father of three daughters the most important thing that can come out of this—that we recheck that we are doing all we can to be very clear that this kind of behaviour is not only criminal but just bad for the young people. It is corrosive and it speaks to corrosion within some in our young. I have a high regard for the vast majority of our young who know how to behave properly and respectfully. But that is a very concerning outcome of this and I think that those three things need to be addressed. That is what I as Minister of Police working with my ministerial colleagues will be doing.So to that first question—“What confidence can we have that the complaint or complaints will be taken seriously?”—well members do not need and should not take my word for the fact that I have that confidence. Even before this report was released the police and other social agencies had worked very hard to ensure that there will not be a repeat of this. I hope that that is the case. As members know there was a very important Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct in 2007 the Bazley report which looked into the culture and conduct of police in respect of a number of things including investigation of adult sexual assault. I received a quarterly report from the Office of the Auditor-General on the progress of what is a 10-year plan to improve the culture the performance and the professionalism of police around these sorts of matters. The most recent report tabled in this House in February makes what I think are quite reassuring comments: “The Police are focusing more on the needs of people who have reported a sexual assault. Some of the victim support organisations”—those are the people who are dealing with the victims of sexual crime every day—“[that the Office of the Auditor-General] spoke to observed that the Police were more empathetic than previously. They felt that the Police showed greater respect for victims and were focusing on what was right for the victim.”Furthermore in respect of the police monitoring sexual assault—I am going to come to that in the context of the second question—a senior manager in the police told us that with these types of information: “We know our business [the] best we have ever known it. We agree that the Police now have better reporting systems to provide a good view of their activities. The information indicates that the Police’s performance in investigating adult sexual assaults has improved.” That is very important to me—both the quality of the investigations and more important the joining of the dots. I think what the report has revealed is that had the child protection team officers investigated in a different way and recorded the findings of their investigations in the National Intelligence Application database the police database it would have joined those dots earlier. We cannot be sure whether or not that would have resulted in a prosecution where one has not occurred but what I am sure about is this: had that occurred a brighter light could have been shone on the activities of these young men sooner and that could have resulted in prevention of further incidents.That is actually what police have been focusing on for the last 4 or 5 years: prevention first. The best way to address the offending is to prevent it from happening in the first place. They have worked very hard through things like the neighbourhood policing teams better patrolling and contact with a number of organisations to ensure that they act early and professionally. What is disappointing about this is that that did not happen. So it is incumbent on me as Minister of Police the commissioner his team and every single member of the New Zealand Police to reflect on those findings and to make sure that we take every single action we can to treat complaints seriously to treat victims with empathy and support and to record in a way that ensures that patterns of behaviour that start to emerge can be noticed quickly. I am encouraged to note that police tell me that they now work on the adult sexual assault database—part of the National Intelligence Application database—to check that sort of pattern of offending. So I do hope and expect—in answer to the first question—that if the same behaviour were to occur now it would be investigated in a much better way.Is there ambivalence a culture of ambivalence within the police? Well the Independent Police Conduct Authority did not find that nor did the Auditor-General in its most recent quarterly reports—in fact quite the opposite. Very often when we hear about these sorts of failures they are systemic failures. In fact it is said by the authority these were effectively human failures by officers who should have done a better job frankly. So I am confident hopeful and optimistic that this does not reveal a culture of ambivalence towards the complainants. Again I will be monitoring that very closely.Lastly what can we do as a community to provide our young people with better guidance better skills and better manners frankly as young men around appropriate sexual behaviour? There are no easy answers to that but the Ministry of Education and our schools do have a number of tools available. Members will be aware of Sophie Elliott’s mum Lesley who has the Loves-Me-Not programme which she is working on around our secondary schools in New Zealand. There are a number of other programmes like that that are all geared towards changing behaviours and attitudes. There is a ministerial group that is set up to develop strategies for family violence and sexual violence and it cajoles all of the Government agencies in that space to work together to get better information to improve our performance in family violence and sexual violence. I know it is working. I am encouraged by what I have seen in my 4 months as a member of that group.Lastly I want to challenge Jacinda Ardern and Police Association head Greg O’Connor on what I think are actually quite inappropriate comments today around police resourcing. I think it is very inappropriate to say that but for police resourcing this would not have happened. That is unfortunate. I reject it and I refute it—in fact quite the opposite. Do you know how much resource has gone into these investigations which with better reporting and better investigating at the start would have prevented a heck of a lot of downstream resourcing being invested in this? I do think it is inappropriate to refer to that. The police reject it. The Independent Police Conduct Authority did not say that that was a problem and the commitment of resources into these types of complaints has not in any way led to the failures that are identified in the authority’s report.Sue Moroney: How can you be sure?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Because I asked them every day. Trust me if they were they would be very forthcoming in telling me. They have said quite the opposite and I reject the claims by Ms Ardern and Mr O’Connor that resources had anything to do with this. This is a very disappointing exception to what I think is a trend of better policing in adult sexual assault and I hope that that standard will be maintained again in the future and we never have another Roast Busters.