Borrows Chester: Policing Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: Policing Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:17915] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Although Part 5 of the Policing Bill covers a number of points I would like to speak mainly to the “cops as councillors” provision which is clause 97. Clause 97 when it was first introduced read: “Police involvement in elections (1) No constable authorised officer or supervisor may take part in an election as—(a) an electoral official within the meaning of section 5 of the Local Electoral Act 2001; or (b) an electoral official within the meaning of section 3 of the Electoral Act 1993. (2) Nothing in this section limits sections 52 and 53 of the Electoral Act 1993.” That pretty much reflected the position of the 1958 Police Act which of course the Policing Bill replaces. 
The reason there is a bit of conflict between what the Minister calls the status quo now and what she was calling the status quo a couple of months ago is this. The status quo currently is that serving police officers can stand for election to local authorities because the provisions of the Electoral Act talk only about central government elections. That is why we have the situation where five serving officers are currently serving as elected officials on our local authorities. It was interesting then to note that the main barrier to leaving the situation as it is actually came from New Zealand First. That appeared very clearly to be because of some conflict that the list member Ron Mark has with someone whom he has run up against in the past because he was the one who was pushing the issue. That is why when the commentary was put together the National Party made it clear that it had concerns around the passing of this bill in the form it came back to the House in with the current version of clause 97 preventing officers from being able to stand for election to local authorities. 
Not long ago of course the Minister came before the Law and Order Committee and was questioned on this particular point. My colleague Ms Wilkinson said to the Minister: “Is it Government policy then that cops can be councillors?”. The Minister said: “The Labour caucus has agreed that in fact the status quo should remain.” So Ms Wilkinson said: “So cops can be councillors?” and Ms King said: “Indeed that’s the Labour caucus’s view.” I will just repeat that. Ms Wilkinson said: “So cops can be councillors?” and the Minister said: “Indeed that’s the Labour caucus’s view.” Other questions then went on. Ms Wilkinson said: “Obviously there are many councillors who do a fine job if there are potential conflicts of interest. They can deal with those with their own procedures and at the end of the day it is up to the public to decide whether they can do both jobs.” and the Minister agreed with that. 
That seemed a bit unusual to us because we thought that we had heard that Labour was not happy with this provision—in fact it was the Government’s bill. So the National Party member on the Law and Order Committee put the issue to the Minister again and said: “Can I just ask a quick supplementary Minister? If National introduced an SOP to revert to the status quo”—the status quo being that police officers can stand for local councils—“would Labour vote for it?”. The Minister said: “We support the status quo and I don’t know whether you would need to introduce an SOP.” Now to any one else that would mean that Labour and National would vote against the clause as it is at the moment and the status quo would remain. 
So one has to ask the question well what has happened since then? What has been given up by the Government or what has been obtained by New Zealand First to change the view of the Labour Government on this particular point? It seems very very strange to me that all of a sudden there has been what some people might call a flip-flop from the Government on this particular point. It was critical it was something that we discussed at length and the Minister agreed that police officers should be able to stand as councillors. She said: “Indeed that’s the Labour caucus’s view.” There was a question from Ms Wilkinson: “So can cops be councillors?” and the response from the Minister was “Indeed that’s the Labour caucus’s view.” Yet today the Government presents to us a Supplementary Order Paper on the day that we are debating the bill grandfathering the positions of those honourable police officers who are currently serving their communities well. The Minister also said in her speech of course that they are doing a fantastic job and that it is just one of the ways that police officers do go on and serve their communities in their own time—that they are doing a wonderful job in those positions. 
I would agree with the Minister on that because police officers bring to the role of local councillor a real eye view of how communities operate. Members will know that often we find people who hold some standing within the community are put into elected positions as councillors. But how much they really grasp what happens at street level I do not know; in my experience a lot of them do not grasp that. They may be community leaders in various fields but for an understanding of how the vulnerable in their community actually react or behave how those who offend within a community behave or how search and rescue emergency services and civil defence act within the area one can get a real eye view only from someone who is on the ground at the time and those people tend not to be elected to district and regional councils. So the ability of a police officer to be able to stand for election to a local authority gain a seat on his or her local council and be able to express that view and draw the attention of other elected representatives to it is critically important. 
The National Party has put up Supplementary Order Paper 213 in my name to allow officers of the police to be able to continue to stand for local government. The Labour Party appears now to have changed its position. It says no only those who are there at the moment can serve as councillors and they can stand again but nobody else who wishes to serve their community in that way will be able to do so ever again. The Government has done some kind of deal with New Zealand First. We look forward to hearing from Ron Mark when he gets up to speak to this part of this bill or to hearing from the Minister exactly why the deal was done in that way or why the Labour Party caucus has had a road to Damascus experience whereby in one month it was totally in favour of police officers being able to stand for local councils and represent their communities and the next month it is not.