Locke Keith: Independent Police Conduct Authority Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Independent Police Conduct Authority Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is supporting the Independent Police Conduct Authority Amendment Bill. It has been a long time in the hopper since its former existence as the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill and I think improvements have been made on the way through. 
The formulation of the bill was helped—unfortunately in one sense—by the experience in Rotorua and all the goings-on there with the court cases that followed and the trial of Mr Dewar. As members may recall back in the early days of the furore over what happened in Rotorua it was Mr Dewar who did a lot of the investigation for the original Police Complaints Authority investigation into those matters. Of course he gave the police officers concerned a clean bill of health. There were serious problems there and it highlighted one of the problems in dealing with police misbehaviour—that is the police sometimes tend to cover up for each other. Partly that is a hazard of the occupation itself in that the police by the nature of their work are forced to work very closely together often in very dangerous circumstances. They often owe their lives to others supporting them. Close bonds develop and they do not want to let their mates down even if their mates are doing something that is very wrong and not in the public interest. 
We absolutely need a police force. We often need police officers to engage in dangerous activity and it is inevitable that there will be that bond whereby officers support each other through thick and thin. The Dewar case illustrated that it is important that any investigatory body be as independent from the police as possible. 
It is good that we are now expanding the numbers on the authority. The original Police Complaints Authority had just one person in charge and hardly any staff. The authority had to rely on the police to carry out the investigation and very few complaints were upheld. There was a lot of disquiet in the community and there were huge delays. I have had a delay myself for years at a time in terms of a complaint I made back in 1999. I do not think it has been resolved yet. So there was a big problem in the system. 
Then under the original bill—the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill—it was provided that the authority be expanded from one officer to three. I see in the bill that the new authority will now consist of up to five members appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House. I think that will give it more capacity. The whole theme as I understand it is that the authority will be as independent as possible and have independent staff. Some of those staff may have been police officers who are experts in investigatory situations but we do not want just police staff or people on very short-term delegation from the police; we want an independent authority. 
This is important as even now the police tend never to see anything wrong in what they are doing. The year-long Taser trial finished on 31 August. It is interesting to read the comments made by the Police Association various police officers and the police officers in charge of the trial. For example they made the comment that in every case that they used the Taser or every time they brought it out there was no problem at all. There is a reluctance to admit that there may have been a few downsides. Of course there are upsides and downsides. The critics of the Taser—people like myself and Hone Harawira behind me from the Maori Party—would all admit that on occasions there are upsides and downsides. I am not saying that the introduction of the Taser is justified if we look at it overall but we look at the pluses and minuses of the situation whereas the police tend just to cover up for each other in respect of the Taser trial and to put a rosy gloss on it. That is an illustration of why it is necessary to have an independent body such as the Police Complaints Authority. 
The Green Party will be supporting this bill. We will monitor the progress of the new authority and make sure that it is truly independent and that it truly keeps the police whom we very much need in our society in order.