King Annette: Policing Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Policing Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:17914] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 The final part of the Policing Bill addresses a range of administrative and miscellaneous issues and splits the bill into three subparts. Subpart 1 which deals with biometric information—clauses 78 to 83—establishes a process to gather and manage staff biometric data for use in pre-employment vetting and as elimination data from non-intentional contamination with crime scene samples. Subpart 2 deals with international policing and it consolidates laws relating to international and United Nations policing. Subpart 3 deals with the improved identification of police employees and authority for exercising police powers. 
Part 5 is really the miscellaneous parts of this bill. There is also Supplementary Order Paper 222 in my name with five amendments sought in this part. The first an amendment to clause 94 alters the language of how certain information on the enhanced police ID card is described. This is a technical change that will ensure that the new ID card must state certain prescribed information and bear certain prescribed things but it can be in any form that the commissioner thinks appropriate. This provides a sensible flexibility for any technological changes that might affect the form of ID cards in the future. Clause 100 is also amended so that the related regulation-making power to prescribe matters relating to the new ID cards aligns with the amendments sought in clause 94. 
Thirdly there is a minor textual change to clause 106C(1) in order to clarify the commencement date of the regulations made under the new Act. Fourthly a new clause 120(1A) is to be inserted which will substitute a reference to “constable” for a reference to “member of the police” in the Burial and Cremation Act 1964. 
Finally there is a companion Supplementary Order Paper—Supplementary Order Paper 226—containing a new clause 106G and I wish to talk a little about this clause this evening. The new clause 106G deals with sworn officers serving as councillors on territorial and local regional authorities while also serving as active police officers. When the 1958 Act was passed there was a prohibition on sworn officers also serving as local government councillors. The prohibition was to be triggered by the passing of legislation. Fifty years have passed and the regulations were never passed. In fact the prohibition was never put in place. So for decades sworn officers have been able to be elected as local body councillors. At present five of the 8400 sworn staff are in such a position. When I introduced the Policing Bill in my name I raised this as an issue that was worthy of debate. The bill as introduced retained the status quo but I did set out that it was an issue on which we would like some debate and some comment in terms of submissions. My understanding is that the Law and Order Committee heard a number of submissions—in fact there was quite a large number of submissions—on this part. In terms of where we should sit in relation to this matter it was the Labour caucus view that the status quo would remain. However on looking further at the issue and on taking consideration of the advice of the Legislation Advisory Committee which was asked by the invitation of the select committee to present to the select committee on this issue the caucus was considerably swayed by its view that we ought not to muddy the waters of political neutrality in our police service by allowing serving officers to also be able to hold political positions in local government. 
After listening to the arguments surrounding this issue it is the Labour caucus view that we should not allow police officers to serve as local government councillors but that we should enable them to continue to be community councillors. Community boards around New Zealand as members here know are able to provide very valuable advice to local government while not in fact being part of local government that makes decisions sets by-laws and introduces laws which police officers would go out and police. We have also said there are five officers who in good faith have been elected to local government in New Zealand and that those five officers should be able to have their positions grandparented as long as they are elected to them. 
This has been a hard issue for the caucus to decide on and I know that other parties in this Chamber have looked hard and long at it. I believe that we have come to an arrangement whereby police officers can continue to serve their community on community boards but are not put into that position where their neutrality as police officers is questioned because they make a by-law for example on liquor laws and then go out that evening and police those laws. There was quite a lot of concern that that in fact puts the police in a very difficult position and opens them to criticism if they make the laws as local councillors on one hand and then on the other hand they police them. So what we have attempted to do is get a balance between their rights to serve their community—and of course the police serve the community in many different ways indeed. They serve the community by being on all sorts of trusts on non-government bodies that work within the community and they will be able to continue to serve their community as community representatives in local government. But in terms of them serving as elected local councillors Supplementary Order Paper 226 brings into place the prohibition that was expected in 1958.