Gallagher Martin: Police Complaints Authority (Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Gallagher Martin: Police Complaints Authority (Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12747] 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I rise to take quite a brief call in this debate. As chair of the Law and Order Committee I want to compliment its members for the work they did on this bill. I think it is appropriate and appropriately gracious to also express my appreciation along with the Government members of the committee for the work that was done by the Hon Tony Ryall and Ron Mark from the opposite benches as well as by my deputy chair Marc Alexander in helping us facilitate this bill in a relatively short period of time. 
As members will be aware there was a fairly tight time limit. The reason for that was very understandable in that the bill amended the Police Complaints Authority Act in order to allow the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct which has been recently established to fulfil its terms of reference to inquire into the adequacy of any investigation carried out by the police on behalf of the Police Complaints Authority. 
As I think has been previously stated in order to do this it was necessary to override the secrecy provisions of the Police Complaints Authority Act so that relevant information can be disclosed to the commission. The secrecy provisions require the authority and its staff members to maintain secrecy in respect of all matters that come to their knowledge in the exercise of their functions. The secrecy provisions are needed to create a climate in which witnesses can give evidence without fear of self-incrimination or retribution. The secrecy provisions in the Act are retained but have been suspended for the purpose of this inquiry only—I want to stress that. The other very critical point is that the bill has a sunset clause and the legislation will expire 1 year after the commission has finally reported. 
I certainly acknowledge the concerns of the New Zealand Police Association and I note that it continues to have concerns in this particular area. I also want to note that this decision to totally empower the commission in its work was supported unanimously by the committee. I also note that the New Zealand Police Officers Guild appears by media reports to be reasonably happy with the work the committee did. I want to assure members of the New Zealand Police Association that it was a decision the members of the committee did not take lightly. We certainly listened very closely to the advice provided by officials weighed up the issues and basically came down to the basis that we must not unduly fetter or hamstring the commission itself. 
I think it is very important—and I think we in this House would all agree—to ensure that the New Zealand Police is perceived by all of the population to be amongst the best police forces in the world. This is all about ensuring that that confidence in our police is maintained throughout our community and I think that is obviously where the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct will fulfil a very important function. 
I want to take the opportunity to assure members of the New Zealand Police Association and members of the police force that our intent as a select committee was clearly to assist that commission of inquiry to do its very important job—the outcome of which in my view is to ensure that we as a society maintain confidence in what I still believe is one of the best police forces in the world. 
Without further ado I thank the officials the submitters who came before us and the members of the Law and Order Committee in understandably working under very tight pressure. We look forward now to the very constructive and positive work that we believe will be undertaken by the commission of inquiry itself.