Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Ryan Bridge: Our new hope, wait, and see approach to policing in NZ

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Ryan Bridge: Our new hope, wait, and see approach to policing in NZ · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've just adopted basically a hope, wait and see approach
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to policing in this country. This at a time when
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: crime is out of control. People don't feel safe in
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: their own homes, they don't feel safe in city streets.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty thousand retail crimes were reported last year,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand, and despite their best efforts,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: our comps are struggling to keep up, and they've just
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: been delivered what I think is basically a slap in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the face for in terms of pay by the government.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: The Police Association has lost its final offer arbitration over
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: pay increases, meaning the government. One Chris Carhill says he
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: can now only quote hope that officers won't move to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Australia en mass, where pay is way higher and conditions
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: are much better, well certainly in some states. On the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: face of it, the offer actually looks pretty good, along
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: with a lump sum and overtime being paid, which is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: not to be scoffed at. The increases are actually four
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: percent from July first backdated and four percent from July
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: twenty five. And if we believe Adrian Or and Coe's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: predictions about inflation hitting the target of one to three
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: percent later this year. Then the increase that the police
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: get will actually beat inflation, which sounds pretty good, right,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: not when you consider the shite sandwich that they've been
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: dealt in the past few years. Under labor inflation was
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: out of control. It was out as out of control
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: as crime. You could say. It was running at about
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: six to seven percent, and during that time police annual
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: pay increased only about three and a half percent. The
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: police union says it basically had to suck it up
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: take the deal because if they went for more, it
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: might mean job cuts. And we've just spoken to the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: police minister. He says he wouldn't have let that happen.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: But I mean, how do you know. So do we
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: want fewer higher paid cops or more lower paid cops?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: The reality is that we might get the worst of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: both worlds if they upsticks and cross the ditch, fewer
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of them and the rest feeling underpaid and overworked. For
• 2:00
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• 2:03
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• 2:05
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