Clendon David: Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:527. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):This Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill purports to enable cost recovery for certain police services. Most of those services of course are currently provided through baseline funding—essentially Vote Police each year funds the activities of the police force throughout New Zealand with one or two well-known and historically stable exceptions such as firearms licensing and the like. The Greens absolutely believe that we need to retain that model—that we fund the police adequately to do their job which is a difficult job and a complex set of tasks. We think there is no place for user-pays in funding policing in New Zealand.This bill absolutely sets the police force on the road to user-pays. It establishes a model where at any point by Order in Council the Minister of Police can make regulations to extend the range of services for which a charge will be applied. Inevitably those charges will broaden. Although they have suggested that the initial charge—$7 as I think has been mentioned—would be relatively low nevertheless that will inevitably increase over time. In any case we think that is too much to impose on organisations particularly those that are charged with the care of children—schools early childhood centres. This sort of charge will have an impact on those organisations. Although we are told that there will be opportunities for exemptions for those organisations to apply to be excused from the charge that in itself imposes charges on small community-based organisations. We see no place for user-pays by stealth because that is what we believe this bill is. It is as in the phrase already used by my Labour colleague Kelvin Davis thin end of the wedge stuff. It is very much the first little step on the way towards charging people for policing services and we want no part of that.The point has been made that the police have suffered budget cuts to the extent that their budgets have either been stable or slightly diminished over the years. Their costs have gone up. The police have responded very well. They have responded positively heroically to the cuts to their budgets. They have found efficiencies they have invested in new technologies and they have invested in new tactics and very good strategies to reduce their costs and to get maximum productivity out of their officers out of their force and out of their equipment. But there is a point beyond which there is nothing left to be cut. There is no fat left in the system. I believe the police are actually past that point where they are actually suffering from the fact that they are being funded inadequately. This idea of charging for some services is not a satisfactory or an acceptable solution to that.The proposition in the general policy statement is interesting. Some of the sort of tortured convoluted logic that is offered to us in the explanatory note almost reads like a Neo-liberal Economics 101 tutorial desperately trying to justify the imposition of these charges on the basis of private good versus public good. It does not stand up to even the least scrutiny like the idea that somehow a person must pay for a form of a licence to operate if they want to work with children for example by paying this fee to have them vetted by police to ensure they are right and proper people to be working in an environment where there are children. The proposition we are told is that that moves the cost away from general taxation to specific users or beneficiaries. I would argue that we are all beneficiaries when we ensure that our children are not exposed to people who may behave inappropriately who may not be safe with those children. To suggest that the private good overrides the public good in that simply is not a sustainable argument.We are told there will be efficiency in consumption—quoting from the explanatory note: “demand that is not strictly necessary but which occurs due to a zero nominal price should be eliminated.” The proposition embedded in that is that people are going along to get individuals vetted just for a bit of fun just because they can and it does not cost anything. That is nonsense. People do not go and get police vetting of individuals lightly.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DAVID CLENDON: Before the break I was making the point that this is simply user-pays by stealth. This is an attempt to introduce the mechanism that will enable charging of core public services—in this case policing—in a way that starts off looking quite minimal quite benign but in fact inevitably it will increase it will expand and it is simply the wrong model to be funding our police force. The proposition in the explanatory note as I was mentioning before the break is the notion of efficiency in consumption—the proposition that demand is not strictly necessary but occurs because there is no charge effectively. It is proposing that people are getting these vettings done for reasons that are not significant or real—that they are simply doing it because it is free. I simply do not accept that proposition.Regarding efficiency in production we are told that “… users facing a nominal price will demand high-quality services from Police. This … will drive Police to be innovative and seek production efficiencies:”. I believe that every one of our hard-working diligent police officers from the newest recruit up to the commissioner should be offended by that comment. It suggests that our police will work a little bit harder a little bit more efficiently because they are clipping the ticket because there is an actual fee involved. I absolutely reject that and I do believe that it is almost a slur. Police officers could quite rightly be offended by that proposition that they will work harder and smarter and more effectively because there is going to be a $7 invoice attached to their action. That is nonsense. I have great confidence in our police force. There are occasional falls from grace and that is unfortunate but for the most part they do their job very well and they work very hard. The idea that they will do a little bit better because they can hand somebody a $7 invoice is simply offensive.Similarly the notion that charging for these services which allegedly benefit individuals—but as I have already made the point in fact there is significantly more public benefit in for example vetting people before they work with children than there is individual benefit. We are told nevertheless that this will free up resources for the delivery of front-line and preventative services. I cannot see where vetting is not a preventative service. It is in the nature of vetting that you ensure that these people who are going to work with children are appropriate people to be trusted with the care and custody of children. How is that anything but a preventative service? I think this justification we are offered has tried so hard to justify something that ought not to happen that they have had to go to these extreme lengths and offer this very convoluted logic as I have said.In May when the press release came out from the then Minister of Police we were told that a fee of around $5 to $7 had been proposed. Already before it is even in place we have gone to the top of that range—$7. I think there is an indication there that charging will only increase. More significantly we are told that this is about cost recovery. The changes we are told will allow the police to recover about $2.2 million a year. That is not an insignificant amount of money but put it against the overall police budget—and I am relying on my memory here—I believe it is about $1.5 billion a year that we spend on policing. To suggest that this relative drop in the bucket that this whole piece of legislation enabling charging is about clawing back $2.2 million out of a $1.5 billion budget is I think nonsense. It is simply user-pays by stealth. It is just the opening up—the softening up in a sense—of the New Zealand public to accept that “Oh yes if you want a service from the police force you are obliged to pay for it.” That is a road that the Greens are certainly not interested in going down.The point was made earlier that some organisations will be exempt from vetting charges. I guess if they plead hardship or some other concern they will be heard and the volunteers working for them will be excused this charge. What about the transaction costs that involves? Again what is the actual net benefit to the police out of this claimed $2.2 million? Take away the costs involved in gathering that money in the day-to-day management of transactions and that $2.2 million will disappear very quickly or a large chunk of it will. The cost that it imposes on NGOs which typically are supported by philanthropic funding often by Government grants creates this money-go-round where these organisations simply will be put at cost. Thank you.