Hipkins Chris: Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:532. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I felt compelled to make a brief contribution to this debate after hearing Jonathan Young’s contribution. In the 30 seconds or so that he spoke he could not have been wrong in more ways. The entire 30 seconds were just completely wrong.Kris Faafoi: Concentrated.CHRIS HIPKINS: It was concentrated wrongness. The issue that Jonathan Young spoke about was cost recovery in the case of early childhood teachers. The first thing that he was wrong about is that not all early childhood centres—in fact the minority—are profit-making businesses. The vast bulk of early childhood services are community-based. They are run by kindergartens or they are run by community organisations and they do not make any money so he was wrong in that regard.The second and more important thing is that the organisations do not pay teacher registration fees; individual teachers pay the registration fees. So if the police are going to start cost recovery for police vetting for the purposes of teacher registration that is not a transfer of cost on to an early childhood centre or even a school; it is a transfer of cost to every individual teacher in the country. Every individual teacher in the country will now have to pay more money to get police vetting in order to keep their registration up to date.Teachers are not the only ones. In any profession where police vetting is required and where the employer does not pay the cost of it this will be a transfer of cost on to ordinary everyday New Zealanders. There are a multitude of voluntary organisations that require police vetting because there might be children or vulnerable people involved in that organisation. It is right that we ask those community organisations to have that system in place because it ensures the safety of children and young people and that is what the police are there for. It is absolutely legitimate for us to say to the people working in those environments: “You should be police-vetted.” It is for their safety as well as for the safety of the people who are in their care or in their charge. Transferring that cost in the case of voluntary organisations will probably result in some people just saying: “This is too difficult. I’ve got other ways that I can spend my time.”In the case of teachers and the other professions where police vetting is required it is a direct increase in costs. I have to say to the Government members that if they do not think they are going to end up paying for this one way or the other they have got another think coming. The teachers quite rightly will come back to the Government in their next round of collective employment agreement negotiations and say: “Actually the cost of us maintaining our teacher registration has gone up and we want the Crown to cover that by way of a salary increase.” That would be a perfectly legitimate thing for them to ask for. Otherwise they are going to be going backwards. They are going to be getting less money cash in hand for doing the same work. It would be a pay cut. It would be perfectly legitimate for them to say: “We want the Crown to cover this.” So the Crown is going to cover it one way or the other. This is actually very short-sighted.Labour is supporting the bill’s referral to the Law and Order Committee because there are some instances where we think cost recovery might be justified. In the case of major events for example where there are significant policing implications where there is a cost to the police for what is primarily a profit-making event or function there might be some legitimate reasons for going to those organisers and saying: “We want you to contribute to the cost of doing that.” That is legitimate.The part where people have to be police-vetted for the purposes of their job or for community involvement or whatever is simply unfair. That is a step too far. If that is not addressed through the select committee process I think it is very unlikely that Labour would continue to support this bill through because it is the beginning of introducing user-pays policing. I do not see how that can possibly be justifiable or sustainable in the long term for this country.I certainly will not be supporting right the way through the process a bill that transfers the cost of police vetting for something like teaching from the police where it exists at the moment—and therefore the Crown by extension—to the individual teachers. I think that would be manifestly unjust. I think it would inevitably result in teachers—I am using teachers as an example but there is a multitude of other professions that would be covered by this as well—very legitimately seeking to come back to the Government to ask for that cost to be covered in other ways. Otherwise what the Government is doing is it is increasing the cost to hard-working New Zealanders and it is basically taking the cost away from the Government. That is not sustainable and it is just not fair.