Simon Power
National Party Law & Order Spokesman

18 May 2006

Police recruitment off to shaky start

The Government will have to use objective recruitment methods if it is to have any chance of finding an extra 1,000 police over the next three years, says National’s Law & Order spokesman, Simon Power.

He is commenting on a report that a senior recruitment officer told a man that his orange scarf was ‘gay’ and that he might want to ‘lose’ it if he wanted to become a police officer.

“If this is an example of how they are going to go about recruiting these extra police, then this incident makes that target even harder,” says Mr Power.

“These comments, whether said in jest or not, were inappropriate and unhelpful.

"I have been concerned that the Government would have difficulty getting the 1,000 extra police. Comments such as this will do nothing to alleviate my concerns. It is working against what should be a positive recruitment campaign.

“It is also particularly concerning in light of Police Minister Annette King’s comments to Parliament yesterday that ‘the police are using criteria that have been used for a number of years’.

“We need police from a wide cross-section of society.”

ENDS

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