Aucklanders are having to wait an average of one hour and 49 minutes for police to respond. Photo / File
Aucklanders are having to wait an average of one hour and 49 minutes for police to respond. Photo / File
Police wait times are ballooning around the country with people who call for help waiting more than 90 minutes in Auckland City for them to turn up.
But a police boss is defending its response times saying nationally there's only been a slight change in the response to the most urgent callouts.
Those in Auckland city faced an average wait time of one hour and 49 minutes for police to respond to an incident in February this year - more than four times longer than the 25 minute wait time in October 2017, figures released to National under the Official Information Act show.
Northlanders are also waiting a lengthy one hour and 18 minutes - 47 minutes longer than five years ago and in Counties Manukau the wait time has risen to one hour and three minutes from 18 minutes.
National Party MP Mark Mitchell. Photo / Alex Burton
National's police spokesman Mark Mitchell said the figures have skyrocketed and showed response times had more than doubled since 2017.
Mitchell said the growing response times were a shameful reflection of the Government's political grandstanding over staff numbers.
"Police numbers across the country have increased and the Government is quick to talk about how excellent that is, but the reality is Kiwis who need the help of police are waiting much longer."
The response times are shorter further down the country with the exception of Waitemata which has a response time of 39 minutes.
But of all 12 districts, Southland is the only area that has bucked the trend and decreased its response time by 13 seconds to 14 minutes and 52 seconds in the past five years.
The wait time is longer - in many cases much longer - in every other district.
The response times in Eastern, Central, Wellington, Tasman and Canterbury all hover around 30 minutes. But it is still a 14 to 16 minute increase compared with five years ago, barring Tasman and Canterbury which only saw the clock ticking by another five and six minutes longer.
The response times in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty have also surged by 40 and 33 minutes meaning police are taking just under an hour to turn up to jobs.
NZ Police deputy commissioner Glenn Dunbier. Photo / Paul Taylor
NZ Police deputy commissioner Glenn Dunbier told Newstalk ZB the call-outs were prioritised into categories and the median response time for priority one calls - the most critical incidents that required immediate responses - had risen to eight minutes and 21 seconds from seven minutes and 42 seconds in the past five years.
The response time for priority two callouts was also only slightly higher too, he said.
"If you were calling and you were under immediate risk, you would expect us to come to that beyond something that is a little bit more historic and we do that."
Dunbier didn't think the increase was too bad given the number of callouts of domestic violence and mental health had risen dramatically during that time. Those incidents were mostly classed as priority one because people were likely to harm themselves and others.
Police received about 1.3 million calls into the communications centres every year and about 450,000 required police to attend them.
Dunbier denied police were under-resourced and said it was always a balance of having enough police staff to respond and ride the waves of demand.
