Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Casey Costello: Associate Police Minister on the soaring police recruitment numbers

Transcript

Casey Costello: Associate Police Minister on the soaring police recruitment numbers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A surge in police college applications. We'll see recruitment wings
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: expand from eighty to one hundred people from next year.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: A record thirteen hundred and seventy two applicants were received
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in July, followed by the second highest number in August.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: But the increased recruitment numbers mean some other police college
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: courses might need to move to districts or even online.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Casey Costello is the Associate Police Minister. She joins US
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  Speaker 1: Live this morning. Good morning, minister, Good morning Harry. I'm
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: very well, thank you. I have to start with you've
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: released advice on the smoking issue, on the heated tobacco
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  Speaker 1: products issue, and you released that last night, so I
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  Speaker 1: had to start with this. Critics say most of this
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: actually isn't even related to heated dibatto tobacco products, or
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  Speaker 1: some of it even is written by Philip Morris employees.
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  Speaker 2: So and there's a lot of confusion in this space.
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  Speaker 2: I just really someplace. Heated tobacco products were already in
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand's market. They were already here. What we know
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  Speaker 2: from health was that it was significantly less harmful than smoking.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: That we know that Health New Zealand released that and
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  Speaker 2: we know other jurisdictions where heated tobacco had been used,
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  Speaker 2: we'd seen significant smoking reductions. So what we did was
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  Speaker 2: a trial to make a price differential to see is
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  Speaker 2: people who hardcore, long term addictive smokers, which is what
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: we're dealing with now, had other options. So when I
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  Speaker 2: met with quit smoking providers as well, they confirmed that
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  Speaker 2: they are dealing with people who all the existing products,
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  Speaker 2: including faithing, aren't working and are there other products. So
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  Speaker 2: this is a trial, so one thing amongst the whole
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  Speaker 2: range of things that we're producing.
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  Speaker 1: So the Ministry of Health told you specifically that heated
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  Speaker 1: tobacco tobacco products are proven to be less harmful than smoking.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is the data, and this has been
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  Speaker 2: released to media as well, that there's in terms of
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  Speaker 2: the harm reduction, the number of products that are less harmful,
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  Speaker 2: there's a rain of products that are less harmful, and
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  Speaker 2: heated tobacco, which was already in the market in New Zealand,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: was less harmful. So therefore, if you're trying to and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: vaping since twenty eighteen, as much as we hate, vaping
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  Speaker 2: has been a significant contributor to our massive reduction is
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  Speaker 2: making but will people because this is just another.
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  Speaker 1: All heated tobacco products are worse than vaping, right, so.
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  Speaker 2: The worry they're not as low harm.
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  Speaker 1: So, but the worries you have people go from vaping
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  Speaker 1: to heated tobacco products.
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  Speaker 2: No, and this was this was the point. We weren't this.
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  Speaker 2: This is just one option that we were trialing to
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  Speaker 2: see if it could provide some support to the smoking rates.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, it's really frustrating when I you know,
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  Speaker 2: this is such a massive issue. When I met with
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: heated other e quit smoking providers throughout New Zealand, the
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  Speaker 2: frontline workers delivering services, I'm told that I'm the first
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: minister to actually meet with the frontline providers. Okay, so
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: this is this is why we're doing stuff. We're talking
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: to the people who are delivering the service.
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  Speaker 1: I have three really quick yes, no questions, and then
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  Speaker 1: I'm done with this and we can move to police.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Do you trust tobacco companies and their advice?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I've never dealt with tobacco companies, so I have
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  Speaker 2: no written some of these I've written some of these reports,
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  Speaker 2: haven't they that? This is where there's been some discussion
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  Speaker 2: that they have funded research.
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  Speaker 1: But research trust research.
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  Speaker 2: They fund this. This is why we're talking about. This
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  Speaker 2: is a range of advice, a range of advice that
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  Speaker 2: has been given for a product that is less.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: His lux and or his office been in contact with
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  Speaker 1: you over the last twenty four hours. Not with me, no,
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  Speaker 1: but who who Winston.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I haven't had any contact with the Prominis's office. I'm
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: assuming my staff have met with his staff around what
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  Speaker 2: we're doing and while all the media noise, but as
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  Speaker 2: he said, he fully supports what we're doing. We're on
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  Speaker 2: a way to achieving a common target. We're all trying
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: to get to smoke three twenty twenty five. We've just
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: got a different approach.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Speaking of targets, the police. Obviously we need more police
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  Speaker 1: on the beat. This must be encouraging. The number of
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  Speaker 1: applicants to go to Police Training College.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we're over double what we for the same period
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  Speaker 2: last year were overdouble the number of applications. And the
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: one that's really encouraging, we've had seventy three so far
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: either rejoin or apply to rejoin the police. And our
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: attrition rate is still below five percent, which you compare
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  Speaker 2: to other public services which range between eleven and fifty
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  Speaker 2: four percent. Attrition rates police are at four point eight.
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  Speaker 2: So you know, all of stuff we're doing about investing
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  Speaker 2: in frontline policing, supporting them to get back to their
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  Speaker 2: core functions of keeping our community safe is really working.
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  Speaker 2: And it won't great news and.
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  Speaker 1: It won't compromise the quality of the training.
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  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. We have totally committed to ensuring that
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  Speaker 2: we maintain the same standards that we're not not going
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  Speaker 2: to compromise that in any way, shape or form. But
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  Speaker 2: what we have seen is a massive increase in the
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  Speaker 2: number of people interested and that's that's fantastic news.
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  Speaker 1: All right, minister, thank you very much for your time.
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  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Kit's Casey had a great day.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You two the Associate Minister of Police with us also
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Associate Health. Just for more from News Talks ed B
• 5:21
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• 5:24
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