Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:623;Page:18796] 
7.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: What types or categories of “clearance” of reported crimes exist and of these which are included in reported clearance rates? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 The clearance categories used by the police for recorded offences are prosecution warning diversion referral to youth aid mental state of an offender offender in custody and other which could include such as where an identified offender has died. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Would the Minister please explain why crimes are being recorded as being resolved without the alleged offender being spoken to arrested charged or convicted? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: That could include people who have died or who have left the country and gone overseas when there is DNA evidence that connects them to a crime. 
Ron Mark 
: Did the Minister not see the reported comment of the police national statistics manager Mr Gavin Knight who confirmed that a crime could be deemed “resolved” without speaking to arresting charging or convicting the alleged offender; if so does that explain why a family man in south Auckland who confronted a burglar in his home on 10 February 2004 and who gave the police DNA material has never heard back from the police about that burglary investigation but has since been burgled again on 3 February this year and has that crime also since been “resolved” in the same way? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: It is interesting that Greg O’Connor in the same article said: “There is no evidence that people are fiddling the data and I don’t believe there is any dishonesty …”. I have faith in the New Zealand Police unlike those in other parties. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Those were very interesting observations by the Minister of Police but they bore no resemblance to the question. I was starting to get interested as to whether that crime had been solved. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is an interesting point of order but I think the Minister did address the actual question. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Since you have decided that the Minister did address the question I ask in what possible way he did that. The Minister just got up and told us about an interesting article he had read in a newspaper or some staff magazine. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister got up and added to the comments about that article and then added further comments that were made in that article. 
Judy Turner 
: Can the Minister suggest any reasons other than the ones he has tendered so far during question time for the measurable differences between clearance rates and charge and conviction rates? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: Clearance rates are used by the police when they believe an offence can be cleared because of prosecution warning diversion referral to youth aid mental state of the offender offender in custody or other. Those are the areas the police use. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Does the Minister have any concerns that different police districts use different definitions of a crime clearance? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The Commissioner of Police has assured me that checks are built into crime recording practices at operational and national levels using proven methods. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How do the police in calculating resolution rates deal with a case like this: a school bus driver was apparently charged early last year with child pornography offences which he admitted in court last Wednesday but neither the police nor the school nor the parents were told of those charges by the Department of Internal Affairs? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: That is a matter for the police not for the Minister. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table an article containing this comment from Greg O’Connor of theNew Zealand Police Association: “officers were working in a ‘statistically driven’ climate where the process for ‘solving’ offences was less stringent than in the past.” 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table an email from Mr Malcolm Ross and his partner Aura Finch outlining their dissatisfaction with the police’s reaction to solving their burglary problems. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.