Greg Fleming: Maungakiekie MP says Police charging out of their time for large events would be a big win

A suggestion Police charge out their time when working large events.

It comes from Maungakiekie MP Greg Fleming, who says officers have told him about the amount of time they spend policing events.

He says the law change would only focus on large events and charge around one dollar per ticket on an hourly basis.

Fleming told Heather du Plessis-Allan it'd be a big win for Police.

“Number one, most importantly, it would keep our local bobbies actually on the front line. Secondly, it would allow off-duty officers to earn some overtime.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So here's a question for you. Okay, should event promoters
pay police to turn up at whatever it is, whatever
the event is that these guys have organized. The question
has been raised by an Auckland MP who reckons the
constables and his electorates his electorate are sometimes spending fifty
percent of their time not patrolling the beat but patrolling
the sidelines instead. Now that MP is Greg Fleming from

(00:20):
among the kerk, who's with us?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, Hey, Greg, good morning here.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
So are you talking about events at Mount Smart or
is it more than just that?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's more than that. Yeah, so obviously that's the venue
that's local to us. But yeah, it's right across the right,
across the area, and it seems to be disproportionately affecting
the front the community officers. So we've got a couple
of ones who are focused in our community of any hunger.
And they were the ones that raised us with me
when I asked them one night, had long with an

(00:48):
MP where they had been patrolling that night, and they said,
they've been here, as you said, patrolling the warriors. And
so the more we've locked into it, the more I've
realized that it's not yet, it's not nice for lated
an incident at all. And and but we need to
need a little law change in order to in order
to change that.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
And so how much would you expect people to pay?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, the math that we've run on the back of
the envelope at this stage because they've been focused more
on terms of the legislative change, it would only be a
dollar per ticket, because essentially what you're talking about is
that the change would be constrained through really large events.
Are you're talking to the forty fifty thousand people at
a music or a sports content venue, and then the
cost of that on an hourly basis based on overtime.

(01:29):
And this is the key thing. So what the law
change would do is would allow police to be able
to charge an event organizer for delivering police and from
that and they'd keep that revenue in a separate poll
which they could then use to pay off time off
duty officers. So we would have the double whammy. Number one,
Most importantly, it would keep our local bobby sexually on

(01:51):
the front line. Secondly, it would allow off duty officers
to earn some overtime.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
And is Mark what you're okay with us? Have you
talked to him.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
About yeah, Yeah, he's very support of it. The key
thing is going to be to see where it is
room on the government's legislative agenda to get it through.
So that's why in the meantime I've put it into
the Private member's bill so that I can process the
idea and then we'll see how we can actually get in.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
What I do though, Greg, here's the problem with it,
because I think it sounds like it's a winning idea.
But the trouble is what if Mount Smart is like, Nah,
not going to pay, then what do you do as
the police. Do you do you go I get fine, call,
you get no policing and therefore people are at more
risk at the event. Or do you just go I
get fine, We'll do a free b for you because
you're being a pain.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, this is why they just sort of change was needed.
Because I first looked at it, I figured that there
was something in our law that the police couldn't change
the services, and then I found that in twenty sixteen
we actually did pass the piece of legislation, a Police
Cost Recovery Act, which allows them to do it, but
they just hadn't applied it to event, so it was
just mainly around police vescing. And then however, then we
dug deeper and realized that actually the actually could be

(02:54):
based on the UK experience of exactly what you just described.
So an event organized would say, well, I didn't ask
you police to come, so you can't charge me for it,
and the courts recently upheld there. So what my law
change would do would would make a special category making
it clear that just because there is also a public
benefit attached to it, it doesn't mean that you can't

(03:15):
charge for private benefit. So police would say, yeah, if
you have a certain size, we need to have police
there in terms of public safety. That's also going to
accrue a public a pretty significant private benefit to you guys.
That's going to impact I have policing on the front line,
So we're going to ask you to contribute to the stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Greg, thanks very much, appreciate a great flimming the national
and people Mang and Kicking.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
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