Govt cuts ‘may stop police recruiting’

Press, 29 May 1982, Page 2

Govt cuts ‘may stop police recruiting’

PA Auckland Reductions in Government spending were expected to result in an 18-month postponement in police recruiting, from the end of 1982. said a report in an Auckland newspaper yesterday. It said that the cadets and recruits now training at the new, multi-million-dollar Police College, near Porirua. might be the last students there until February. 1984. The head of police training and personnel at police national headquarters in Wellington, Assistant Commissioner G. A. Dallow, yesterday declined to confirm or deny that recuriting would stop. However, sources had told the newspaper that there would be no August intake of recruits at the 13-month-old college. They also said that Ministry of Transport officers might use the college, which

stands on a 15.4-hectare site, to prevent its becoming a “white elephant.” By not recruiting more staff, the.police would, effectively, reduce New Zealand's police force by about 190 employees a year. The 1981 annual report Of the police said that 194 employees had left the police in the previous year through resignation, retirement, dismissal, or death. The total for 1980 was 243, and for 1979 it was 253.

A forced postponement in recruiting would help the police to meet the 3 per cent reduction in spending sought by the Government. Such a reduction means more than $5 million a year for the police. A large number of police stations throughout New Zealand were likely to be closed to help the police reach the 3 per cent target, the reports said.

The Police Association's national secretary, Dr R. A. Moodie, said that a list of police stations under scrutiny had been prepared but that the details were confidential. The stations were kept open for political (“at a local level rather than at a government level”) reasons rather than for need. Dr Moodie said, “We are not looking for preferential treatment when it comes to reducing Government spending. We have got to be realistic about the situation." He said the association accepted that the police would not be exempt from reductions in spending and that the mood of the country was to remove the need for further taxation.

The association opposed any reduction in policy com-munity-relations areas, which could, mistakenly, be thought of as the most expendable part of police work.