Minister calls on police to respond more quickly

Police are still not getting to burglaries fast enough, says Police Minister George Hawkins, and he wants a big improvement.

Police now attend 84.4 per cent of all burglaries within 24 hours of reports being received, but that does not meet the 97 per cent target Mr Hawkins set when the Labour-Alliance Government was first elected.

In 14 months in Auckland to last December 19, only 3.1 per cent of all burglaries were not being attended within three days.

Mr Hawkins said attendance under the National Government was more like eight days.

Recorded burglaries had fallen by more than 17,000 offences since 1998-99 - that amounted to 330 fewer burglaries every week.

"That is a pretty good start in cleaning up the mess left by National," he said.

"There's more work to be done."

Mr Hawkins said he had spoken with Police Commissioner Rob Robinson about improving response times.

He said the Auckland police had 617 sworn officers when they were budgeted to have 603.

The burglary rates were brought up in Parliament yesterday by National's justice spokesman, Tony Ryall.

He raised the issue after stories in the Herald revealed that complaints to police about one of the accused in Auckland's RSA murders went unchecked in the week before the killings.

Two separate businessmen said they had given police detailed information about an offender in respective crimes on their premises a week before and two days before the murders.

The information was not followed up until after the murders and both businessmen say police would have been led to one of those charged with the murders.

Mr Ryall also used parliamentary privilege to breach a court suppression order relating to the RSA case.

In response, Mr Hawkins said: "I am not going to get involved in what is going to be evidence before the court to satisfy some political whim of the Opposition."

The Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA was the scene of three murders on December 8. Club president Bill Absolum, club member Wayne Johnson and cleaner Mary Hobson were beaten and killed.

The two defendants, Darnell Kere Tupe and William Dwane Bell, are each charged with three counts of murder, one of attempted murder and one of aggravated robbery.

Outside the House, Mr Ryall would not comment on breaching a suppression order.