Mark Ron: General Debate 
Mark Ron: General Debate 
[Volume:623;Page:18492] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I draw the House’s attention to a communication: “On 4 July 2004 at about 12.03 hours we had a P1 domestic job and another P1 assault apparently involving an off-duty cop. All units were at jobs so I directed the dispatcher to call”—get this—“CHWS4 and any W units. There were three logged on and out of service since they logged on this morning.” 
In this email the dispatcher shows that he got no reply to repeated calls. He said: “I see no reason for them to be logged out of service and not listening to their radios. My reason for wanting them was to stop an offender who had taken a 2-year-old child away from her mother. We had to pull three units from P2 jobs.” In response to that and in the discussions we have had in this House what did this  
Fawlty Towers 
 Minister of Police have to say? He said today that there were no highway patrol units available. That sums it up because the email does not mention highway patrol units; it talks about “W units”. That means any police patrol of any description that is assigned to traffic duties. 
The Minister can come into this House obfuscate and say that a vehicle was finally dispatched after 4 minutes. I say to him that to a mother whose child has been abducted 4 minutes might as well be 4 days. The point is that the dispatcher knowing the gravity of the situation wanted to dispatch a car immediately. He knew he had three cars sitting there that were not engaged. But the Minister now says that the Government is happy to have officers who have been sent to another emergency pulled out of that emergency. They can tell the victims: “Sorry I’ve just been listening to you complain about a burglary. I know you’re traumatised I know you’re in trouble I know you’re upset but I’m shooting through. I have got to go and do another job.” The police officer can then jump into his or her car and drive away. 
The Minister says that it is perfectly acceptable for three officers who were actively engaged on three different jobs to tell the victims at those crime scenes that they had to get going to do another job whilst W units were available. What are W units? W units deal with excess blood alcohol and also include the commercial vehicle investigation unit the highway patrol the strategic traffic unit Christchurch City traffic patrol and Christchurch rural traffic patrol. I wonder whether members are aware precisely how many different types of traffic patrol units this Government has ring-fenced out there. I would make a guess that at any time of the day in this country 50 percent of the front-line units are doing nothing but traffic duties. How do I know? I know because of a couple of things. 
Today we read reports that the Government has set its priorities in such a way that it allocates 2.7 million hours of police time to traffic duties. That means that every one of the 7000 uniformed officers—including the commissioner the deputy commissioner the assistant deputy commissioner and the deputy assistant commissioners—has to dedicate 386 hours to traffic every year; every one of the 7000 of them. When Robbie Robinson the commissioner does not do his 386 hours it means that some other bobby has to pick up that work. If someone is sick or if Steve Hines 
or Stephen Long—those high-ranking officials who sit in national headquarters—do not do their 386 hours it means that some other bobby has to pick up those hours. So that means when Iraena Asher—[ 
Interruption 
] I know that Mr Cunliffe does not care about the case which is why he is being so flippant in the House now. When Iraena Asher called for help there was no car available for her. The Government has a responsibility because its ring-fencing of traffic patrol units was the reason why no car went to Iraena Asher when she called for help. The warning was sounded in July last year. If it had been listened to it would have saved Iraena Asher’s life. I have only one question for Mr Cunliffe who seems to think that Iraena Asher’s disappearance is a joke and it is: where is she? Where is she? Who is responsible for failing to send a police car to her and for sending a taxi instead? Who is responsible for taking the three officers away from the duties they were performing and rededicating them when a mother wanted assistance?