Coalition police target already pushed out

The coalition Government’s commitment to an additional 500 frontline police in the next two years was quietly pushed out to three years just weeks after the deadline was agreed in post-election talks.

Newsroom understands all three governing parties discussed, agreed to, and made the change to meeting the target in not two, but three years in December last year.

The coalition was formed on November 24 and the 500 frontline police commitment was part of the agreement between National and New Zealand First.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told the House on Tuesday, “the Government’s policy is to deliver 500 additional officers over the term of this government which is three years, and we’ve been very clear that we understand the challenges around that.”

Mitchell denied it was a walking back of the coalition deal because “as the incoming Government, and the advice that we got, it became immediately apparent that there were big issues around recruiting”.

“It was difficult to fill the existing recruit wings, the Australians are here recruiting our police officers and we’ve got lots of senior police officers that are coming up to retirement,” he told the House.

Labour’s spokesperson for police, Ginny Andersen, said the change from two to three years was “another broken promise”.

“He’s either reneging on the coalition agreement or the cuts to police will go so deep they can’t deliver those 500 police in two years,” she told Newsroom.

“Telling the simple truth seems to be a struggle. They need to be upfront with New Zealanders about what these frontline cuts mean.”

In an interview on Monday Mitchell told TVNZ, “realistically 500 new staff over the next three years is what we’re aiming for”.

Andersen said that gave little confidence the 500 additional police would even be recruited in the new three-year timeframe.

New Zealand First secured a commitment for 1800 additional frontline officers over three years in its coalition deal with Labour in 2017.

However, the coalition government later shifted the goalposts by claiming it had met the target just by training 1800 new officers but hadn’t taken into account attrition and a concurrent reduction in numbers.