Paula Bennett: Every New Zealander deserves to feel safe

Paula Bennett: Getting more police on the beat was my first priority when I became Police Minister.

In February the Prime Minister and I announced funding for 1125 more Police staff.
Since that announcement, the Police Commissioner, the Police Executive and the 12 District Commanders have been working together to find out where the greatest need for these officers is.

The Eastern Police District was one of four districts we considered the biggest priority to receive more Police. The Eastern District covers the tip of the East Cape through to Southern Hawke's Bay. Eastern will be getting 68 additional police officers over the next four years. That's on top of the 423 officers already serving across the district, a 16 per cent boost.

Now that we know how many will be coming to the area, your District Commander, Superintendent Sandra Venables, will work out exactly where they'll be stationed. What we can assure you of, is 95% of New Zealanders will be within 25 kilometres of patrolling officers.

There are 20 bases around the country which will now have a 24/7 Police presence. This will include Wairoa. There'll also be a 24/7 Police base in either Dannevirke or Waipukurau, the exact location of which is yet to be decided.

The first recruits will start Police College in July and will graduate in October. Getting more Police on the beat was my first priority when I became the Police Minister.

Every New Zealander deserves to feel safe.

This is a significant investment and we want to get the most out of the $503 million we've spent on the Safer Communities package. That's why we've set challenging performance targets. Police will attend 98 per cent of burglaries within 48-hours. Over the next four years they plan to seize $400 million of cash and assets from gangs and organised crime, up from $230 million.

They'll increase their response time for both answering and attending emergency calls, and they're aiming to reduce the number of deaths from family violence and reduce re-offending by Māori.

There will also be a new national 24/7 phone number for non-emergencies, additional specialist investigators for child protection, sexual assault, family violence and other serious crime, additional officers to target organised crime, gangs and methamphetamine, additional ethnic liaison officers to support Chinese, Indian and other ethnic communities and more mobile policing units to provide policing services on the move where they're most needed.

The number of people applying to join the Police recently hit a new high. In January and February 1351 people applied to join the Police, twice the number of applications at the same time last year. If you, or someone you know is keen to join the Police, there's never been a better time to join.

Paula Bennett is Minister of Police and Deputy Prime Minister. Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. Views expressed here are the writer's personal opinion, and not the newspaper's. Email editor@hbtoday.co.nz.