Sunday 10th April, 2011

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews Police Commissioner, Peter Marshall.

Please note: There was a sound problem near the end of this interview – noted in the transcript.

The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is broadcast live on TV ONE between 9-10am on Sunday mornings and repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PETER MARSHALL interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL Peter Marshall is the new Police Commissioner, and he’s been in the job just a week. He’s been a police officer for 38 years. The last four years he’s been Commissioner of Police in the Solomon Islands. He’s been appointed to the post here for three years, and he’s expected to be a reformer. And this week he said he was against general arming of the police, even though that’s now supported by the Police Association – general arming. But he does support greater access to firearms and tasers for the police. Well, last week on Q+A, the Police Minister talked about the changes. She made it clear there are changes she wants to police culture, that’s been described as needing ‘urgent change’. So does the new Police Commissioner agree with her? I started my interview with Peter Marshall by asking him for his early impressions of morale amongst the rank and file and what concerns from the rank and file he’s hearing.

PETER MARSHALL – POLICE COMMISSIONER
Well, I think the morale, generally speaking, is very good. I base that upon commentary that I’ve received of that and over recent weeks. The main issue, of course, is the financial situation. They are aware that New Zealand Police is not going to be quite as expensive in terms of the finances as it has been in times gone by. That’s understood, that’s accepted, and I think there’s a very responsible approach to it.

PAUL Judith Collins, the Police Minister who appointed you, has made it clear she wants to see some big changes in the police. In fact, she told us this last weekend on Q+A. Here’s what she said.

JUDITH COLLINS
They need to be dealt with. There is no room for underperformers and slackers in the New Zealand Police. They should be, and most of the police are, a high-performance agency.

PAUL So she wants to see quite a bit of cultural change, but she doesn’t want slackers in the New Zealand Police, and she wants to see better police rewarded. Is she right?

PETER She’s definitely right. I mean, the majority of police officers in this organisation are fantastic, and I base that upon my overseas experience as well as over 30 years working here in New Zealand. And there is no room for slackers. There’s no room for bludgers and malingers within our organisation. And people are moving on all the time, and I really want to focus upon this issue. My first executive meeting is on Monday week, and I’ll be making this point very clear to the district commanders.

PAUL She made it clear, though, that there are cultural aspects, and several reports over the past few years have made it clear there are some cultural worries. And she wants to see some cultural changes. How will you make the changes? Because one report said, ‘The police DNA needs to change.’ How are you going to do that?

PETER Yes, I’ve read that report. The report talks about such specific areas the lack of connection between headquarters and the districts. It talks about issues about wanting to recruit, promote policewomen, issues of inconsistent leadership, the performance appraisal – I agree with those issues. But it does worry me with the loose terminology of ‘culture’. Culture saw Christchurch police officers in their scores, despite their own houses being severely damaged, working around the clock. The district commander said, ‘I tried to get them to go home. They wouldn’t.’ That’s a strong culture. We saw 13 officers awarded bravery medals last weekend because of that culture of getting on and looking after themselves and getting the job done. The culture, again, without labouring the point, sees investigations going for nine months around the clock. And a lot of organisations overseas, from my experience, would’ve not had that degree of tenacity. So culture is a very positive aspect, and, of course, it can have its side affects. I’m going to focus upon pockets within police as identified by the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, a report I take seriously.

PAUL Yes, of course, there are hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will agree with what you’re saying about the positive culture, but you did mention just before a kind of a, what would you call it, a gap between the districts and headquarters. Now, what was disturbing, Commissioner, about that business a few years ago – the child-abuse case backlog in Wairarapa – was that the Wairarapa district lied to head office about the number of unresolved child-abuse files it had. Would that happen again?

PETER Well, I’ve looked at the Independent Police Conduct Authority report, and the 34 recommendations should make it very obvious that it is unlikely to happen in that set of circumstances. The challenge for me is make sure there’s resilience and robustness around that. I mean, we have an organisation of 12,000 people. We attend 3000 jobs a day. We do make mistakes from time to time, and occasionally there are ethical problems. And if that happens under my commissionership, I’ll put my hands, we’ll look at dealing with the situation and we will actually put in place as best we can.

PAUL I understand, but not only was this not very long ago, but this was a detective superintendent who misled head office. If that happened on your watch, what would you do to him?

PETER Well, he— The allegation is against a detective senior sergeant, and it is before the employment processes at the moment. But quite clearly there are issues there. I don’t want to compromise the process that’s underway, but hypothetically any police officer who is the subject of serious issue in terms of code-of-conduct matters has to be made accountable.

PAUL Yeah, and you’ve got—

PETER That’s a general comment.

PAUL And you’ve got processes going on, I understand that, but, of course – I don’t want to hammer this home, but, of course, while this deception was being effected, children were being abused.

PETER That’s right. It’s absolutely shocking. It should not have happened. Commissioner Broad made very public apologies to that issue, and I will be vigilant and my executive will be vigilant. We’ll do everything we can.

PAUL Can I say to you, from what you’ve been telling us, it doesn’t particularly sound like you think or that you agree with the report that the DNA of the police needs to change?

PETER Well, I am a little bit confused as to what the word or the terminology ‘DNA’ in the context of our organisation is. I have been with New Zealand Police nearly 40 years. I know there are certain issues, as I mentioned before, in terms of the policewomen and the need to promote. I know there are issues in relation to performance appraisal and certain managers. But fundamentally I think our organisation is second to none. We have a trust and confidence rating of 75% and voted the most trusted department last year. There are areas we need to improve on – no argument there all.

PAUL Well, no organisation is without areas that need to improve, I suppose. 100 police officers were investigated last year – were disciplined, I beg your pardon, last year. Should that be a worry, or should we be pleased?

PETER Well, I would like to have a situation where no police officers are disciplined. We have an organisation of 12,100. I’m not sure of the breakdown of those particular 100 cases. Some of them might have been judgement issues, some of them might have been relatively minor and, of course, there will be others at the other end of the spectrum. But I want an organisation that is highly professional, that is highly ethical, and I’ll do my best during this next three-year period to ensure that happens.

PAUL You mentioned, Commissioner, the gender gap…

SOUND DROPS OUT ON-AIR

PAUL Women are only around 20% of police, even at the point of intake. But very few – only 17%, I think – move past sergeant or senior sergeant. Are we going to need affirmative action in that regard? And I suppose in this regard we can also talk about getting more Maori into the police force, more Chinese, more Asian people into the police force. Do you need affirmative action to fix some of this?

PETER Well, I was talking to a group of policewomen in Christchurch yesterday, and there are practical problems in the sense that they made it clear that they’re not that transferable in terms of moving from location to location. Their general situation is that invariably they are married. Invariably, they have children. And as they raised with me, ‘If my husband is an electrician here in Christchurch or a manager of an insurance company or a builder, and a vacancy comes up in Queenstown for an area commander or a district commander’s position, I really can’t move.’ And that is a problem that we’ve got to look at, because when it comes to senior management positions, we want people who are competitive, based on merit, and they’ve got to show that they’ve had certain levels of experience. From a personal point of view, I must have had something like 13 moves within police. The whole question of flexible employment is something we’ll need to consider. Having said that, in relation to an area commander’s position, you look at the crime managers – we have two lady crime managers within New Zealand Police. They do an outstanding job. You can’t flexi-work their particular types of duty, so it’s something that we have to look at.

PAUL What about the cultural or racial mix? Affirmative action there?

PETER I think there needs to be an absolute balance and representative of the community – no issue there at all. We’ll be doing all we can to promote and recruit ethnic groups within our organisation. We’ve got to reflect this organisation of 12,000 people.

PAUL Yeah, but do you need affirmative action to make it happen?

PETER I want— No, at this stage I want people who meet the threshold, who meet the criteria and so that we have consistency in terms of intelligence and overall ability.

PAUL Can I ask you about police bars? These are a subject of some controversy, and there’s much talk about them. Do the police bars lead to a culture of heavy drinking in the police? Or are they really the only refuge for the police to unwind?

PETER Well, there certainly was an element of heavy drinking in the early years of my career in the 1970s. But of late, I haven’t been into a police bar, apart from headquarters, in the last four and a bit years, to be honest with you. So I don’t know what the exact situation here is, but I would imagine with the drink-drive situation, in terms of good common sense, there’s been an awful lot of moderation in that regard, and the situation that we saw over previous decades I’d be extremely surprised if it’s replicated in today’s situation.

PAUL Finally, the Police Minister – she says, ‘I want change.’ She says there’s got to be change. Under your commissionership, is she going to get it?

PETER She certainly is. We’ve had many earnest discussions. We’ve had very fruitful discussions. I am very clear on what she and the government want in terms of progressing the New Zealand police. I wouldn’t have taken on the job if I was timid about that prospect, and I am very committed, as, indeed, my executive is very committed to bringing that change about.

PAUL Commissioner, thank you very much for coming on Q+A.

PETER Thank you.

ends

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