Commissioner Broad defends commitment of new police to Manukau

Police Minister Judith Collins pledged an additional 300 frontline police for the troubled Counties Manukau area. File photo / Martin Sykes

Police Commissioner Howard Broad has defended his minister's recently achieved commitment of 300 new police to Counties Manukau against Opposition claims the numbers were made up at the expense of other districts.

Appearing before Parliament's law and order committee yesterday, Commissioner Broad and his deputies Rob Pope and Viv Rickard faced a stream of questions from Labour's police spokesman Clayton Cosgrove around frontline police numbers.

Shortly after entering office, Police Minister Judith Collins pledged an additional 300 frontline police for the troubled Counties Manukau area and 300 more for other districts.

Earlier this month she announced the Counties Manukau target had been reached, and overall 384 additional police had been deployed nationally since December 2008.

However, after prompting from Mr Cosgrove, Deputy Commissioner Rickard indicated that many of the 300 additional police appointed to Counties Manukau were either those funded earlier by the Labour Government or a number that had been transferred from other districts. He also confirmed that any additional police who entered the force between late 2008 and June last year were funded by the previous Government. Between June 2009 and September this year the overall increase was 30.

While Commissioner Broad told the committee he accepted police numbers were a political issue he became irritated when Mr Cosgrove suggested his questions regarding the transfer of police from other districts were fuelled by concerns of the affected communities.

A number of police districts were carrying more staff than they were budgeted for because of lower attrition rates and the decision to retain extra staff in those areas until they could be deployed elsewhere as they were needed, he said.

"That we had people over strength was for basically circumstantial reasons."

Later, Commissioner Broad told reporters the politics around numbers went with the job.

However, "when the demand is upon us to be more efficient then there's room for us to shift our resource allocation so that the effect is that we are more efficient."

"That might come at the cost of the public view about what is policing - the attraction they have for a simple measure like the number of police."

Commissioner Broad told the committee policing in Counties Manukau was "a challenged endeavour" at the time Ms Collins' promise was made and the additional police in "does give us the opportunity to deliver a much better service" in the area.

Mr Cosgrove later said the information given in the committee was evidence Ms Collins was not being straight over police numbers.

"For month after month Police Minister Judith Collins has boasted that National is putting 600 more frontline police on the streets during its three-year term, and denied that over 300 of these were funded by the previous Labour Government.

"Under National almost all the extra police will go into Counties Manukau, the Minister's home patch. Most of the rest of New Zealand will see fewer police. That's the Collins legacy to community safety."

Responding to questions from Mr Cosgrove in the House, Ms Collins said 250 of an additional 384 extra police deployed since December 2008 were funded under Labour's 2008 budget and denied Mr Rickard had said her Government had funded only 30.