Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on the outcome of the police pay increase negotiations

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Mark Mitchell: Police Minister on the outcome of the police pay increase negotiations · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And the government has won its long running pay dispute
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: with the police union, prompting fears of a mass exodus
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  Speaker 1: of cops. Both sides had to enter arbitration last year
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  Speaker 1: after negotiations stalled, the arbitrators have settled for the government.
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  Speaker 1: The offer is fifteen hundred dollars that's a lump some payment,
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  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars pay increase. Basically, it's four percent for
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four a pay increase, and four percent for
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, which if you believe Adrian or were
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  Speaker 1: when he says he'll get inflation within target, that would
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  Speaker 1: actually put that ahead of inflation. However, many cops still unhappy.
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  Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell is the police Minister and who joins me now, Minister,
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  Speaker 1: Good morning, Hey.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Ryan, how are you good?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. Have you seen any projections on how many
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  Speaker 1: police officers might quit the force after this?
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  Speaker 2: No, I haven't, but you know, of course, you know, look,
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  Speaker 2: I completely understand and feel where they're coming from. But
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  Speaker 2: the reality of it is is in incoming government we
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  Speaker 2: were really hard to put together what we feel was
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  Speaker 2: a really fear offer. You know, at the end of
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  Speaker 2: the day, me personally, I was very proud that we
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  Speaker 2: for the first time ever in New Zealand, we're going
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  Speaker 2: to be paying. We're going to go to paid overtime.
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  Speaker 2: And for me that was really significant. I know that
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  Speaker 2: in my own police and career, I was a police
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  Speaker 2: Doyle cam. I's sort of covering from a toy to wire.
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  Speaker 2: There's only two of us. We're working a two week
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  Speaker 2: We're working a two week roster side night shift every
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  Speaker 2: second week. I had an enormous build up of toil.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, I stopped collecting toil because it was not manageable.
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  Speaker 2: And if I'd had paid overtime, this young police officer
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  Speaker 2: with two kids, I would have loved to have trend
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  Speaker 2: listened to that. We've put that in there so I
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  Speaker 2: completely totally understand you know the way our police are feeling.
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  Speaker 2: But hand on heart right, we've inherited it. We've had
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  Speaker 2: a huge hospital pass and we've put together we think
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  Speaker 2: is a really fair package.
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  Speaker 1: Chris Carhill says many of the police officers who were
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  Speaker 1: on the fence about moving to Australia will probably make
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  Speaker 1: the call and go now. He also said that the
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  Speaker 1: options were either this or there would be jobs job cuts,
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  Speaker 1: So either you pay fewer officers more or you pay
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  Speaker 1: more officers less. Was that a serious consideration?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't in the detail that. Obviously, the final
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  Speaker 2: off arbitration is between the Association and the police, and
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  Speaker 2: so I'm not going.
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  Speaker 1: To talk to would have Would you have as police minister,
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  Speaker 1: would you have let job cuts happen at police?
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  Speaker 2: No? Absolutely not. There's no way we were frontline job
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  Speaker 2: cuts had happened. I mean, you know, we've inherited an
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  Speaker 2: absolute mess and we're fighting our way through and we're
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  Speaker 2: determined to start to turn things around. At the end
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  Speaker 2: of the day, of course, I don't want to lose
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  Speaker 2: police officers to Australia, but the reality of is they've
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  Speaker 2: given outstanding public service here in New Zealand and I
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  Speaker 2: make the best decisions for them and their family. Look,
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  Speaker 2: when I was in the police, the Australians we hear
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  Speaker 2: recruiting some of our police officers go most day and
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  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, for me, I'm just
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  Speaker 2: fully focused on getting on top of the awful situation
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  Speaker 2: that's been allowed to grow over the last six years.
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  Speaker 2: With me increase in game numbers, in violence, violent retail crime.
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  Speaker 2: The only ones that can get on top of this problem.
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  Speaker 2: Will have got a big role to play. It's not
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  Speaker 2: just the police, it's just the system as well. Are
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  Speaker 2: the police are the only one They've got the training
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  Speaker 2: and the powers, and we've got to get on top
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  Speaker 2: of the problem. And I totally understand it. I'm sensitive
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  Speaker 2: to how they're feeling about the pay negotiation.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, handle, yeah, I agree with you. I agree
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  Speaker 1: with you. They played such a critical role, which is
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  Speaker 1: why I'm surprised at the fact that that this has
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  Speaker 1: happened the way that it has. And when you've got
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  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the cops voting against the previous offer,
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  Speaker 1: which was very similar to this one, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: how can you have any credibility with them?
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  Speaker 2: No, but it wasn't the last offer. This new offer
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  Speaker 2: that our government put on the table is a quarter
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  Speaker 2: of a billion dollars more in an environment where as
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  Speaker 2: a country, we're paying eight point five billion dollars a
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  Speaker 2: year just in interest payments. We've you know, we've got
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  Speaker 2: to get our books back in order. We've got to
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  Speaker 2: start fighting our way back to a surplus and getting
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  Speaker 2: the economy up and running again. And this was in
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  Speaker 2: light of that. Just let me recap it. It was a
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  Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars lump sum payment. It was a five
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars wage increase and a five point twenty five
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  Speaker 2: percent increase in allowances from November one, twenty three. Then
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  Speaker 2: we went to a four percent wage increase and corresponding
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  Speaker 2: increases to allowances from July one, twenty twenty four, and
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  Speaker 2: then another four percent wage increase in corresponding allowances from
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  Speaker 2: July one, twenty twenty five, which, like you said, is
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  Speaker 2: projected to be above inflation. And on top of that,
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  Speaker 2: we had a we went we were transitioning to a
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  Speaker 2: paid overtime framework we never had before in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: So it was it was it was an offer that
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  Speaker 2: we were really hard as a government to put forward
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  Speaker 2: hand on hard. It was the best that we could do.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not diminishing the fact that the way that our
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  Speaker 2: frontline police are feeling, but you know, a lot some
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  Speaker 2: people will make their decisions in terms of what's right
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  Speaker 2: for them and their family. For me, I've just got
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  Speaker 2: to keep looking forward and I've got to keep trying
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  Speaker 2: to deal with, you know, this awful situation that's been
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  Speaker 2: were to grow over the last few years.
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  Speaker 1: It's Mark Mitchell, the Minister of Police, with us this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your time.
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