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Speaker 1: We've got trouble with new police recruits. A survey of

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Speaker 1: senior officers released of The Herald says graduates are barely

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Speaker 1: equipped to arrest or lay charges. Eighty three percent of

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Speaker 1: respondents reckon that they can't even handle the paperwork properly.

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Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell as Police Minister and joins me. Now Minister,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Heay, good morning Ryan. Are we pumping out

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Speaker 1: half baked cops?

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Speaker 2: No? I don't think we're definitely not pumping out half

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Speaker 2: baked police officers. But it's always been the case that

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Speaker 2: they do. Obviously, they do their twenty weeks. Now I return,

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Speaker 2: I increase the courses from sixteen weeks to twenty weeks,

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Speaker 2: as Zenoy Minister, and then they have two years probationary

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Speaker 2: where they get to all be on the job supervision

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Speaker 2: and training that they need to become world class police officers.

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Speaker 2: And we have a world class police service has no

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Speaker 2: doubt about that. It's good that the police are always

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Speaker 2: testing themselves, that they're having honest conversation, that they're identifying

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Speaker 2: where there needs to be improvement. My expectation is where

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Speaker 2: they identify that, then they make the changes.

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Speaker 1: Is fifty five percent of the senior officers feeling that

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Speaker 1: the new bees were barely or not at all well

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Speaker 1: equipped with knowledge of the procedures for making an arrest

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Speaker 1: and laying charges world class.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're talking about probationary constables. You're talking about constables

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Speaker 2: that are coming out on the job. They see your

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Speaker 2: polessing is a very unique job where you have to test,

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Speaker 2: where you get tested, and a whole range of areas,

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Speaker 2: physically making decisions under pressure, all that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: It's unrealistic to expect them to come out being experienced

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Speaker 2: police officers. They are rookies. They need strong supervision, they

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Speaker 2: need guidance when they come out on the street. They

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Speaker 2: are probationary constables for two years, so they're still being

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Speaker 2: tested for another two years once they graduated from the college.

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Speaker 2: But the good thing is that is that they're identified

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Speaker 2: so that our senior field trainers, who absolutely provide critical

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Speaker 2: feedback to the college are saying that there's some areas

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Speaker 2: that need will focus my expectations, the police will recognize

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Speaker 2: that and I'll make the changes. When I was in opposition,

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Speaker 2: I was highlighting this and continually with the previous government

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Speaker 2: not to drop standards to maintain standards as the income

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Speaker 2: and government. We had a big focus on that. Yes

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Speaker 2: we had a target set, but if I was solely

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Speaker 2: focused on the target, I wouldn't have increased the training

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Speaker 2: course from sixteen weeks to twenty weeks.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, but you also ministered to increase the wing

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Speaker 1: size from eighty to one hundred. You do have a

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Speaker 1: target with New Zealand first week.

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Speaker 2: No, it's not correct, that's not correct, right. The wing

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Speaker 2: sizes are not one hundred. Every wing size, winder size size,

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Speaker 2: it was like that. Well, some of them are seventy,

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Speaker 2: some of them are less, some of them are more.

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Speaker 3: But so you didn't move to increase the wing size.

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Speaker 2: We moved to increase the capacity of the college to

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Speaker 2: be able to train. To fund that, so you saw, yes,

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Speaker 2: of course we funded it, so massive funding.

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Speaker 1: It's the problem here with the training or with the

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Speaker 1: candidates that are getting in, because we know there's been

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Speaker 1: problems there too.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know that.

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Speaker 2: There's been a big focus on standards and quality of

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Speaker 2: training by this government. You know that we're not going

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Speaker 2: to compromise. We've been very clear and said we're not

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Speaker 2: going to compromise on the settings of targets. We want

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Speaker 2: to deliver five hundred diditional police.

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Speaker 3: If there's a result of that, it's not a great outcome.

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Speaker 2: Is it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, yes, we want more cops, but we want

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Speaker 1: more good cops.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I just want to say again that come

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Speaker 2: along to a graduation meet. These police officers are some

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Speaker 2: of the best. Keywis that we've got to put themselves

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Speaker 2: forward for service and difficult to.

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Speaker 3: The media senior officers saying this about them.

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Speaker 2: Then, because the police as an organization that tests itself hard,

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Speaker 2: they realize that they have to maintain the higher standards.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly what the field officers are doing. They're guiding them,

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Speaker 2: they're training them, but they're making sure they identify where

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Speaker 2: we could be doing better. And any organization should be

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Speaker 2: looking for continual improvement. The police is no different. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it's critically important for the police. Yes, as the incoming Mitister,

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Speaker 2: I recognized the fact that we needed to work on

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Speaker 2: standards on trading. That's why as the incoming Minister, I

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Speaker 2: supported moving our recruit training course from sixteen weeks to

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Speaker 2: twenty weeks. I increased that by four weeks. That wasn't

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Speaker 2: going to help us deliver our five hundred, but I

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Speaker 2: felt it was very important to do in terms of standards.

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Speaker 3: Mark Mental Police Minister.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 3: Listen live to news talks.

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