Casey Costello: Associate Police Minister on new Police training facility in Auckland

The Government is trying to hit the mark on work-life balance as it announces a new Police training site in Auckland.  

The Police Commissioner says he hopes to open the new base by the end of June to help the force reach its goal of 500 new officers.  

However, Richard Chambers says they are yet to confirm its location.   

Associate Police Minister Casey Costello told Andrew Dickens the base will attract people wanting to live at home while training.  

She says there are currently barriers to police college for people starting young families.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Aukland's getting a police training facility. Currently one

(00:03):
of the cops have to spend twenty weeks of police
courage in Poti Rua, but the government yesterday announced a
new facility to make it more accessible. It's also supposed
to help with the target of increasing frontline police numbers
by five hundred. And Associate Minister for Police is Casey Casella,
who joins you now, Hala Casey.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning, how are you.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm good. You have to wonder why it's taken so
long to have a second training facility in New Zealand's
biggest city.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, and that's it's been a process that being worked
on for a while. But it was the funding that
we've managed to get through. The five hundred police increase
came through last year. Was identified opportunities, was the plan
any opportunities to increase those police numbers with the target
and that's what they've done.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
How many can you train at this new facility? And
is it residential like the potal one.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
There is a small part of residential, so there will
be some that will be able to live in residence.
The big attraction is that there is a barrier for
the target demographic that we're trying to get, you know,
those those sort of younger early family members that sort
of have got young families that are trying to get
them down to colleges. A big asque for twenty weeks,

(01:13):
so there will be a mix of that.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, Now, how are you going with the extra five
hundred numbers? How many cops have we got right now?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
So we've got ten thousand, one hundred and ninety three
I think as at the end of last year, So.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
We turn ten thousand, one hundred and ninety three.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well done, that's yes, So that's that's a little bit
less than when we came in, which was ten thousand,
two hundred eleven. But we've got three hundred eleven in
college at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Okay, Well, back back in August, we had ten thousand,
one hundred and seven. Now you've got ten thousand, one
hundred and ninety three. Back back in you know, back
in August of last year, basically you've gotten down one
hundred and four police, and the Labor Party was saying
that means you need six hundred hit to five hundred.
So where are you at with the five hundred extra police?

(02:01):
Based on the base number.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, that's what I'm saying. We've got three hundred eleven
at college at the moment, so they'll be graduating. So
that's down there at noon. We've got another wing going
in another week's time, so the wing numbers are increasing
the June. We're aiming for the Auckland wing to be
around June, so we've got we've got more wings going through,

(02:25):
so we're still looking really good. And we've also got
a large number of the commissioners talking about yesterday, a
large number of cops that are wanting to rejoin, which
the last figures I saw was about one hundred and
twenty police officers wanting to rejoin. So there's a lot
of factors that we're doing in order to achieve us
and the home drivers that we've got really good recruitment pipeline.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, good, and you believe you'll get to that five
hundred target. If so, can you give us a date.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, the date is November twenty ead of November of
this year as the date we have to achieved the
ten thousand, seven hundred eleven, which was our five hundred targets.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, we'll just start, We'll just write all these numbers
down so we're perfectly clear in the FOO in the future.
Ten thousand, seven hundred and eleven, currently on ten thousand,
currently on ten thousand, one hundred and ninety three. Good luck, Casey.
We want we wont I think people want cops? Don't you?
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live

(03:24):
to news Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.