Goff Phil: Urgent Debates — Police 111 System—Review 
Goff Phil: Urgent Debates — Police 111 System—Review 
[Volume:625;Page:20472] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 That member got one clap which was all he deserved. I heard John Carter apologising all weekend on Radio New Zealand for the appalling job the previous National Government had done in running down our Defence Force. But when he got up in the House today did John Carter a senior member of the National Government in the 1990s say one word about what National was doing to the police force at the end of its term in Government? Before that we heard Tony Ryall the Minister of Justice in the last National Government. Those members sat in the National caucus and Tony Ryall sat around the Cabinet table with his National colleagues planning to cut our police force numbers by 540. Under the National Party’s plans 540 police jobs were to be cut. Fortunately that National Government was turfed out of office and never had the chance to do so but that is what it intended to do. 
George Hawkins the Minister of Police since December 1999 has increased the number of police staff by more than 1000. We have record numbers of police staff in this country. George Hawkins has increased the annual budget for the police by $200 million. That is $200 million a year more being spent on our police force. We can see it in the record. The police force is now resolving a higher percentage of crime than ever before. In 9 years the previous National Government had run down the resolution rate to a paltry 35 to 36 percent of crime. That rate is already up to 44 percent and is climbing. The police are doing their job; they are locking away more crooks. That is why four new prisons are being built and why there are more convictions than ever before. We have a resourced police force and tough legislation that it can use properly. That is why the crime rate today is the lowest it has been in 23 years. The crime rate came down last year by 8 percent. 
Stephen Franks 
: No one believes it. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Stephen Franks grins like a Cheshire cat and says that he does not believe that the crime rate has come down but he believed it when it went up. He used to parade the crime figures around all the time. We use the crime figures compiled by the same organisation as previously the police using the same method of collecting the statistics. Of course the crime rate is down. The violent crime rate is down. National Party members in an act of absolute hypocrisy come here to the House to talk about crime. National presided over the highest increases in crime rates in the 1990s and the highest increases ever in this country in the rate of violent crime. 
Let me say one other thing to the members of the Opposition who knock the police for doing their job of making our roads safer. Last year we had the lowest rate of road accidents in New Zealand for decades. But 400 people still died on the roads. Ten times the number of murder victims died on the roads in this country because people were drink-driving and speeding. Clearly it has to be a function of our police force alongside fighting crime to make sure that our road toll comes down and that there are fewer victims—fewer families deprived of their kids and fewer kids deprived of their mum or dad through being killed in road accidents. 
I say with regard to the 111 system that it is vitally important that when New Zealanders are facing an emergency and pick up the phone and dial 111 they get a satisfactory response. That is absolutely critical. This report is quite blunt about the shortcomings in the current system. But I give credit to the Commissioner of Police. He has taken responsibility on the chin for that. He has said that it is his job—that the problem is an operational one. That is what this report is about. It is not predominantly about resourcing; it is about operational matters. Stephen Franks has read it; he talked about it before. He knows that of the 61 recommendations about 59 relate to operational matters not resourcing. The Commissioner of Police has recognised that there is a problem. There are 460000 111 calls every year and it is not surprising that some of those go astray. It is not good enough for the police to get it 95 percent right; it is not good enough for them to get it 99 percent right. We need to be sure that every time there is a genuine emergency and a 111 call is put through the police respond effectively and efficiently and a squad car turns up to the site of that emergency. This report sets out a blueprint of what needs to be done. I said before that most of the recommendations are about operational matters which are purely within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police. We have the tradition in this country of constabulary independence. 
The one point the report makes on resourcing states: “While extra staff was frequently raised as a solution and sometimes the only solution to the CCSC problems the Panel does not believe staff numbers … to be the only issue. There is inherent capability potential in the existing staff base and developing this potential needs to be a primary focus.” But the issue does require some extra resources. Our Minister of Police came to the House in February and in reply to a parliamentary question said that a review was going on and that if the commissioner needed more resources we would make sure that he got them. The Minister of Police has been as good as his word. He brought the issue to Cabinet 2 weeks ago he took it up with the Minister of Finance and he came away with an extra $45.5 million to be spent on putting this operation right and on capital expenditure. This Minister of Police has been a success. He has delivered for the police in that regard. 
A wide range of other things need to happen. But just in case those who are listening on the radio to the Opposition spokespeople think that the report was uniformly black I say that it was not. It talked about the good things in the way our system is running about the committed staff and management and about a communications technology that it described in the words “world class”. It talked about the commissioner already being on to the problem and starting to put the solution in place and it made the point which should be obvious to everyone in this House that these problems are not unique. Overseas police forces have had similar performance issues with regard to their communications and emergency response but the report stated that we can achieve best practice in this country and that the problems are readily solvable. I believe that they can and will be solved and I congratulate the commissioner on getting on to the task of addressing them. 
In the last few minutes I will talk about those problems. They are problems of demand and service delivery. They are problems of leadership within the police force the command centre and the communications centres. They are about training and supervision and about new technology. In respect of new technology 1.6 million phone calls come through the centres each year most of which are not priority calls. In fact Telecom has said that 68 percent of 111 calls should not be made and that there needs to be another channel for non-urgent calls. It is talking about an 0800 311 311 number. I hope that that is something the commissioner gets on and does now because if the system were not clogged up with calls that are not urgent and that sometimes are simply hoax calls then it would work better. The report talks about the need for additional radio channels particularly in my city of Auckland. Four new channels will be made available there. We are piloting an automatic vehicle location system—the commissioner is on to that and progress is being made. A new rural liaison officer scheme has been set up because people in rural areas did not feel that they were getting the service they needed. I am in favour of that. A new community reference panel has been set up so that the stakeholders are involved in how the system is being organised. That will guarantee good service delivery. We also have leadership in terms of a national communications centre advisory board. The report talks about training. Although we have the people they need to be well trained. We need to have rostering systems so that at times of peak demand the people are there to answer the calls. 
Those points have been made by the review group and they are points that the commissioner has responded to. He is committed to ensuring that a solution is put in place and that we have the sort of best-practice system that the review team states this country is capable of achieving. I congratulate George Hawkins on getting the resources and I look forward to the commissioner getting on and doing the operational work that he is committed to doing. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.