Chris Cahill: Police Association President on the lack of enforcement of vaping and smoking bans

The Police Association says officers' workloads are big enough without enforcing smoking and vaping bans.  

Newstalk ZB has revealed in the four years since a law banning smoking and vaping in cars with children was passed, no one has been fined or summonsed to court.  

Association President Chris Cahill says there are much more important things for police to focus on.  

He told Mike Hosking police are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  

Cahill believes as soon as police start enforcing fines, there would be immediate questions about equity and whether the fines were given out fairly. 

He said officers already have to deal with breath testing, retail crime, beat work and fighting the gangs. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It turns out that the police have not been enforcing the

(00:02):
law that bans smoking and vaping in cars with kids.
So three years after the law was passed, no fines
have been handed out. What's going on here? Chris car
Hill of the Police Association with US, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning mine.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Did you do this deliberately or not?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Oh? I think probably deliberately you pass the silly law.
It's probably going to get ignored to a degree. I
think it's prior from police. It's a priority point of view.
They can't do everything, and this probably cily fell up
a priority list. But then it's going to boil down
the individual officers who have discretion, and I suspect most
of them again to find there's much more important things
to do with how I think this is a priority.

(00:36):
Perhaps they should get out and spend their time and
money on educating people and want to they can pick
up their mental health.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So what they want you to do is pull over
the car, check the license, check the warrant, check the drugs,
check the drink. Then you get to checking the vaping.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Is that how this rates exactly? I mean, police have
to what do you want us to do? You want
to three point three million breast screening tests. Do you
want us to plase the gangs? Do you want to
to do the retail crime? The boy racers you know
that walk the beat? And Auckland police can't do everything
and they've clearly decided this isn't a priority. And I
think when this law passed, I said at the time,

(01:11):
it's a stupid law. It's not what police should we
be get involved down to us. You've got an issue
with smoking and vaping, you deal with it as a
health issue, not as a policing So ironic.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I thought too that you've taken a health approach to it,
and yet the Greens, who were part of the last
government to it agree, would argue you should take a
health approach to cannabis as well. So they want you
to enforce vaping but not enforce cannabis. Where's the logic
in that?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
There no logic. It just doesn't make sense. And look,
the one thing I do everything turns about these laws,
wouldn't be wouldn't be a fine started getting dissed out,
I guarantee immediately will get issues around the equity who's
getting given the sign and it will be the whole
Despite that police aren't being could have in the way
they operate with those times. It's not the answer. It's

(01:55):
not going to help these people give up smoking and
give up vaping.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Would you do them for texting as well? So you
could get them for vaping, texting, drink drugs warrant license.
Then you could hop in the back seat and give
them some child advice and education advice at the safe time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And then when they talk about mental health issues, who
will sit down and give us a captainy for that
whole in here?

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Get only Chris nice to talk to your Chris car
Hill Police Association President. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks there'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio