Simon Power MP
National Party Justice & Corrections Spokesman

11 March 2008

More questions over 111 system

National's Justice & Corrections spokesman, Simon Power, says Police still cannot tell the public how quickly they can physically respond to emergency calls, three years after the Government's review into the system had supposedly fixed the problems.

He is commenting after two recent incidents, when it took police more than an hour to respond to a 111 call after an intruder was found in a six-year-old girl's bedroom, and 43 hours after an operator had hung up on a person reporting a knifepoint attack at a dairy.

"This is not good enough.

"Since the report into the 111 system in 2005, Police have put a lot of money into building up the communication centres and developing a non-emergency phone line.

"But the public still doesn't know how well the system is working because the Police themselves have no idea what their response times are.

"There has been no information on response times for three years because they are still waiting for a new reporting system.

"It was due to be completed before the end of September last year got pushed back to the end of the year, and is now not due back until June 30 this year.

"How can the public be assured that response times to priority 1 calls are improving when the Police can't be held accountable for the past three years?

"The Police Minister must reassure the public that this information will be forthcoming as quickly as possible."

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