Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Government has a bigger police problem

Look, maybe I'm being naïve, but I'm not that stressed at the news that 3 people were allowed to start police college without passing the fitness test. Were you?

I mean, it seems to be more important to just have police officers and more police officers walking the beat and providing a reassuring presence than it is to be absolutely sure that they can do a vertical jump and run 2.5 km in 12 odd minutes.

I don't know - when was the last time you saw Bobby sprinting 2ks down the road and jumping over a wall to catch somebody, right?

Doesn't seem like it's all that frequently happening in modern policing - certainly in cities.

But it doesn't mean we haven't got a problem. We've got a problem here.

The problem is that the Government is still pretending that it can pump out 500 new police officers by November 27. That's not gonna happen.

I mean, they are trying absolutely everything to be able to meet their target. They've bumped up the number of training spots they've got at the police college from 80 to 100, they're opening a new college in Auckland sometime this year. They're now suspected of having waved in three unfit coppers just to make up the numbers.

But we know that 500 coppers by November 27 is not going to happen because we've had a whole bunch of evidence. The numbers are not keeping pace in order to be able to get to 500.

The officials have warned the Government in the briefing papers that it's not going to be able to do it until midway through next year. And Mark Mitchell admitted last year that they weren't going to be able to do it, and then he got told off by Winston.

So now he's gone back, he's gone back to pretending that he can do it - but he's using some weasel words. He just says the number is aspirational.

Well, aspirational is a politician's word. That's a clue in and of itself.

Look, I think, to be honest, that the Government itself just needs to be honest here. If it's not gonna make the number, surely it's better to be honest now and say you're not going to make the number than it is to keep on pretending and then miss the target in November, which is inevitably gonna happen.

And surely it's worse for the police to be busted doing this, waving 3 unfit people through, even if it's fine that they do it.

Being busted doing it is not a good look, and if that is what we now suspect they're doing in order to meet the 500, that's a very bad look - isn't it?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Look, maybe I'm being naive, but I'm not that stressed
at the news that three people were allowed to start
Police College without passing the fitness test, will you. I mean,
it seems to me more important to just have police
officers and more police officers walking the beat and providing
a reassuring presence than it is to be absolutely sure
that they can do a vertical jump and run two
and a half k's and twelve odd minutes. Because I

(00:21):
don't know when was the last time you saw Bobby
sprinting two k's down the road and jumping over a
wall to catch somebody, Right, it doesn't seem like it's
all that frequently happening in modern policing, certainly in cities.
But it doesn't mean we haven't got a problem. We've
got a problem here. The problem is that the government
is still pretending that it can pump out five hundred
new police officers by November twenty seven. That's not going

(00:41):
to happen. I mean, they are trying absolutely everything to
be able to meet their target. They've bumped up the
number of training spots they've got at the Police College
from eighty to one hundred. They're opening a new College
in Auckland sometime this year. They're now suspected of having
waived in three unfit coppers just to make up the numbers.
But we know that five hundred cops by November twenty
seven is not going to happen because we've had a

(01:03):
whole bunch of evidence. Right, the numbers are not keeping
pace in order to be able to get to five hundred.
The officials have warned the government in the briefing papers
it's not going to be able to do it until
midway through next year. And Mark Mitchell admitted last year
that they weren't going to be able to do it,
and then he got told off by Winston. So now
he's gone back. He's gone back to pretending that he
can do it, but he's using some weasel words. He

(01:23):
just says the number is aspirational. Well aspirational as a
politician's word. That's a clue in and of itself. Look,
I think to be honest, I think the government itself
just needs to be honest here. If it's not going
to make the number, surely it's better to be honest
now and say you're not going to make the number
than it is to keep on pretending and then miss
the target in November, which is inevitably going to happen.

(01:44):
And surely it's worse for the police to be busted
doing this, waving three unfit people through, even if it's
fine that they do it, being busted doing it is
not a good look. And if that is what we
now suspect they're doing in order to meet the five hundred,
that's a very bad look, isn't it. For more Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks at b from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.