11. Question No. 11—PoliceHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of PoliceQuestion No. 11—Police11. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by his statement relating to his position as Minister of Police Absolutely I stand by my statement that if people haven't seen a change then I should leave and someone else should come in"?Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Yes. In December I laid out my expectations to Police. I'm very proud of our police and they have responded strongly. They are focused on the policing of gangs and stopping them from taking over public roads towns and intimidating and abusing members of the public. In Ōpōtiki last year we saw the Mongrel Mob take over the town. Schools were closed roads were closed and the town was effectively held under siege. This year's anniversary of that event was policed proactively whereby law-abiding members of the community had their rights protected over and above those of gang members. Under this Government boy racers and anti-social road users are now facing a strong and coordinated police response with the necessary resources to deal with unlawful and disruptive behaviour. Hugely successful operations were recently run across the country including the Hutt and Wellington where the Eagle helicopter was used to deter around 300 vehicles from gathering to disrupt the public. Police seized dozens of vehicles and hundreds of infringement notices were issued. Under this Government there has been an increase in police on the beat in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch providing reassurance and visibility. The public response to that has been overwhelmingly positive across the country and I'm pleased that police are providing reassurance to communities and keeping people safer. Under this Government the police have established a national gang unit and are setting up gang disruption units in districts which will target gang members and make life extremely difficult for them. Under this Government Minister Costello is leading work on delivering 500 more police and we continue to move at pace to pass legislation banning gang patches and providing police with more tools to disburse and disrupt gang gatherings.SPEAKER: Well whole three years will be up if we keep going with that. So—thank you.Hon Ginny Andersen: How then does he explain the 18 percent of New Zealanders feeling less safe as a result of the Government's law and order policies and 58 percent saying they make no difference at all as recorded by a One News poll?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well I think it tells me that we've still got a lot more work to do and thanks to that member we inherited a shambles but we are committed to fixing that.Hon Ginny Andersen: How does he propose to make New Zealanders feel safer when there are 124 fewer police officers in New Zealand than when he took office?Hon MARK MITCHELL: I've already laid out for the member that this incoming Government one funded the Police properly because the previous Government hadn't; and two we've funded 500 additional police officers and we are on track to deliver those 500 additional police officers.Hon Ginny Andersen: How does he propose to make New Zealanders feel safer when the national gang unit he announced would be operational by 1 July was not stood up by that date and now has only five staff members in it?Hon MARK MITCHELL:Well the national gang unit is an announcement that the commissioner is responsible for and they are standing that up. And just to put the member's mind at rest the Police in the last six months have already had a very strong response in terms of how they deal with gangs as I've just outlined for her. Under the previous Government we saw provincial towns being taken over by gangs. We saw communities fearful. That's not happening now. We saw gang tangis and gang convoys that were taking over public roads and intersections that were driving into oncoming cars that were abusing members of the public—that's not happening under this Government because there has been a very strong response by police.Hon Ginny Andersen: How does he propose to make New Zealanders feel safer when Police have advised him they will be pulling out of family violence now and this will be done "regardless of the readiness of partner agencies" and Police have warned him in briefings that this could result in "threat to life"?Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well I think it's very irresponsible for the member to come into this House and tell the country that Police have said they are withdrawing from family-harm incidents. That is not true. Police will always have a role and they will always respond to family-harm incidents that involve domestic violence or where there is clearly an offence being committed. But I can tell the member that I was on nightshift myself in Auckland recently where police were called to a job where it was a mother and a daughter arguing over an iPhone charger. Now I'm sorry; having uniformed police officers standing in someone's lounge room trying to settle an argument between a mother and daughter over an iPhone charger is not a good use of police time. There are other agencies that will step up and deal with some of those issues. I want police back on their core business. I want police doing the job so that when members of the public put their hand up and they want help there are police officers who are able to respond to them instead of having to deal with all the social issues that this country has and there's a much better response for a lot of those people from other agencies and not the Police.Hon Ginny Andersen: Point of order Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: No you're all done.Hon Ginny Andersen: Point of order.SPEAKER: Oh point of order sorry.Hon Ginny Andersen: I seek leave to table the Official Information Act document I've received that's not publicly available that stipulates Police advising the Minister of Police that there is risk of loss of life if police pull out of family violence call-outs without partner agencies being in place.SPEAKER: The paper's not proactively released by Police?Hon Ginny Andersen: No it's not.SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.Leave received to table document."