KEY POINTS:
Moves to try to stop police from standing in council elections have been described as "appalling", with the Police Association saying it would only prevent officers from further serving their communities.
A clause in the new Policing Bill, which is before Parliament, would mean police officers had to take leave of absence if they wanted to stand in a local body election.
If elected they would then have to choose between the position and their job.
Law and Order committee chairman Ron Mark said it was wrong to have police officers making regional bylaws that they would later enforce and potentially allocating funds to areas that they worked in.
Under the old Police Act police officers never used to be able to stand in local body elections and all the new bill did was clarify that, he said.
But there seems to be some confusion about what the old bill allowed. Police said officers have been able to stand. In fact, a number of officers at present have roles on various councils throughout the country.
Mr Mark said if the bill passed those officers would be allowed to continue in their roles until the next elections. They would then have to decide if they wanted to be police officers or councillors.
The Police Association said it was appalled by the move, which effectively banned police from further serving their communities.
Association president Greg O'Connor said if the bill went ahead police wanting to serve on a local authority would be forced to choose between that and their career, something no other public servant had to do.
"Many police officers have a great insight and commitment to their community, which can greatly benefit local councils," said Mr O'Connor.
"At a time when police need to connect with the public and build positive relationships, this move simply forces police to isolate themselves from either taking a positive role in their local community or their police duties."
The new rules apply to council elections but not community boards.
Counties Manukau police officer Alf Filipaina, who has been a city councillor since 2003, said he was perplexed by the moves to change something that had worked well for many years.
Mr Filipaina, a Pacific Islands liaison officer for the police, said both roles helped him to serve the community and neither impacted negatively on the other.
"Police has always been my main job but I was asked to stand for my community, Mangere ... so I did and I got through. Basically it's just about serving my community."
Mr Filipaina takes annual leave for any day-time meetings he needs to cover as the Mangere representative on the council. Most meetings, however, are in the evening so they do not interfere with his police duties.
The only time there was a problem was when the council had to vote on a bylaw that was enforced by police.
Those cases were rare but when they arose he simply declared a conflict of interest, just as other councillors did when similar issues arose.
Mr Mark said there was often a feeling that there weren't enough police to respond to jobs.
People wanted police "focused on the job" and didn't want to be in a situation where they go to their police officer/councillor to complain about the length of time it took police to attend a burglary.
National Party police spokesman Chester Borrows said his party planned to challenge the clause and would be submitting a supplementary paper that would prevent police only from standing for central government.
A spokesman for Police Minister Annette King said Labour was happy for things to remain as they were.
