Woodhouse Michael: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3032. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Police):It is my pleasure to follow my colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and to talk on the justice group of portfolios. I want to commence by acknowledging the member for Te Tai Tokerau Kelvin Davis and in his intervention his advocacy for victims—and for perpetrators actually—of adult sexual assault. In his intervention he referred to a statistic that is quite alarming—the fact that only 5 percent of victims speak up about that.I was in the Counties Manukau area last week visiting not only the police station but also the Manukau multi-agency centre. It is a very good area and a very good centre which is the joint collaboration between New Zealand Police the Counties Manukau District Health Board and Child Youth and Family. I was extremely impressed with the approach to family violence and to child and adult sexual abuse cases that are reported in that district. It is a concerningly high number but I think the model they have and the multi-agency approach that they take to that very important issue is an excellent initiative and I applaud everybody who is working in that very challenging area.Of course we have recently had both the Independent Police Conduct Authority report and the findings of Operation Clover into the Roast Busters case and I know that police are very committed to joining the dots that failed to be joined in respect of that case. I am pleased—and relieved actually—that the authority’s findings were that this was not a systemic issue and that police are working extremely well on improving victim empathy and their commitment to the resolution of those complaints.It is a very interesting environment in which police have been operating. Naturally they are straitened times. But through the Policing Excellence programme that they have initiated their challenging targets have not only been achieved but also been considerably exceeded. In the 2013-14 year a 13 percent reduction in recorded crime and a 19 percent reduction in non-traffic prosecutions was the goal. They exceeded that by a considerable margin I have to say: a 20.1 percent reduction in recorded crime and a 41.3 percent reduction in non-traffic prosecutions. I think that reflects very much a professional police organisation that is regarded extremely highly not only in New Zealand but also around the world. As a consequence of those efforts that equates to 90000 fewer crimes being committed in that period. That means tens of thousands fewer victims and I think that is what we would all like to see.They have done that by very very smart uses of technology. I think the deployment of smartphones and tablets in order to increase the mobility and the technical capability of New Zealand Police has had a significant impact on the reduction of crime and also on the visibility of our police. You know there has been a lot of talk about bricks and mortar—and I think that is important—but actually what people want is to see their police on the street on the beat and being very visible; not just investigating but preventing crime from happening in the first place.Phil Twyford: How about resolving burglaries?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yes burglaries have gone up that is right. The burglary rate has gone down but the resolution rate has too and that is something that I have spoken about at length with the Commissioner of Police and his leadership team. I think that is an area of homework but one cannot deny—one cannot deny—the statistics on the lowest reported crime rate in 30 years and I think we need to congratulate New Zealand Police for its excellent efforts in that.I want to come back to that technology. Mr Davis: I must say that although I will give him a bouquet I will give him a brickbat as well for his irrational release in January on the upgrade of the iPhones and iPads which was actually part of a very generous contractual arrangement with Vodafone to improve the ubiquity and the technical capability of New Zealand Police. In December I opened the Vodafone Mobility Innovation Lab and Experience Centre in Newtown in south Wellington where a number of organisations are working on tools to enable police to be more mobile and more visible and more efficient with the resources that they deploy. Those efficiencies are real. About 900000 extra hours of policing time have been available to them and that dividend has been paid right back to the New Zealand public because we have maintained the number of sworn officers reduced the number of crimes and increased police presence on the street and I think that is a very good outcome.