Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk
Speaker 1: said be Green's.
Speaker 2: MP Tamotha Paul came under fire this week. You'd be
Speaker 2: hard pushed pushed to have missed that story after comments
Speaker 2: about beat patrol police. She said a lot of people
Speaker 2: feel less safe with the increase of police on the
Speaker 2: beat and claimed that these officers had even been throwing
Speaker 2: away the belongings of homeless people. She made some other
Speaker 2: strange ones about people being locked in prison for twelve
Speaker 2: dollars thefts and things like that, and she was in
Speaker 2: a discussion about what steps could be taken to achieve
Speaker 2: radical police abolition and alternatives to the police as an organization. Wow, anyway,
Speaker 2: Lance Burdette, he's a former police negotiator and he's with
Speaker 2: me now. Lance, Good afternoon.
Speaker 3: Hi Sam here, you're going good.
Speaker 2: What was your reaction to all of this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a little bit set me down, actually,
Speaker 3: to be honest, have you I guess if you had
Speaker 3: to take out the politics of it all, and maybe
Speaker 3: that's it, but everybody has said different opinion about police
Speaker 3: and government departments, and it depends on our perception and
Speaker 3: our perspective. So if we want to remove the perception
Speaker 3: part of it. We use research, right, so what's the
Speaker 3: reality of the situation, And the reality of the situation
Speaker 3: is around sixty nine percent of people view police back
Speaker 3: on the beat as making them feel safe and secure.
Speaker 3: But that's it, and we know also that in the
Speaker 3: research that it has around it between three weeks and
Speaker 3: three months to have a positive impact and it reduces crime,
Speaker 3: and then we must bring in other things like different
Speaker 3: ways of patrolling, etc. So that's that part of it.
Speaker 3: But perspective is more difficult to change. We all see
Speaker 3: things differently and it depends on our experiences, our background,
Speaker 3: our social viewpoint, media, and a whole range of things
Speaker 3: that we've interacted with. And if we've had a bad
Speaker 3: interaction with an organization or heard some bad feedback, then
Speaker 3: our perspective will be changed negatively, and so that's harder
Speaker 3: to change. We have to keep bringing back reality.
Speaker 2: Is in a case of there still being a stigma
Speaker 2: around the presence of police in some communities or is
Speaker 2: it more individual?
Speaker 3: I think that's probably the case in this one. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: there's some communities that I go into and do working
Speaker 3: and there's quite a negative perception still of police and
Speaker 3: it depends on what's happened. There are some historical things
Speaker 3: that have happened to some communities, and when it's broadcast
Speaker 3: what more widely, that does affect some parts of the
Speaker 3: population more than others.
Speaker 2: Do you think that her views are kind of I mean,
Speaker 2: I heard Chloe Swarbrick saying she's just reflecting views of
Speaker 2: some constituents, which she could use to defend all sorts
Speaker 2: of views. But do you think that it's is she
Speaker 2: sort of is it almost like an out of date
Speaker 2: view of the police, like police who might look back
Speaker 2: to the days of the Red Squad and during the
Speaker 2: Springbok two and still be hanging on to that sort
Speaker 2: of stigma.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I think we do need to have some pushback
Speaker 3: on anything we do. If we don't have a leveler
Speaker 3: in all of our roles, I mean, you'd be the same.
Speaker 3: Look at your job, for example, if you don't get
Speaker 3: some negative feedback which you reflect on and you think, oh,
Speaker 3: I might just moderate what I said there. That's how
Speaker 3: we keep things on a level plan Ayngfield. So, but
Speaker 3: probably not to the extreme that I've just seen. I mean,
Speaker 3: police thing's never been outdated. I don't know if any
Speaker 3: other way of keeping the population safe and secure. We
Speaker 3: need to have an organization that's able to do that.
Speaker 3: And we keep that organization and check by having a
Speaker 3: number of functions through the media, through the Independent Police
Speaker 3: Conduct Authority, and a number of other and in fact themselves.
Speaker 3: I actually investigated police for a long time. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what, no stones left unto them when
Speaker 3: that happens, because we all want to see a good
Speaker 3: police and part of if you're part of that organization,
Speaker 3: in fact, you have a higher bar. Well I did.
Speaker 3: Any way, when we're looking at what went wrong?
Speaker 2: Does I mean there are some people who say that
Speaker 2: people like some of the ball don't belong in parliament,
Speaker 2: But that's up to the voters, of course. But do
Speaker 2: you think in a way that it's actually not a
Speaker 2: bad thing to have people sort of challenging these things,
Speaker 2: no matter how potty or lalla they sound.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely one hundred percent. I mean, I think it
Speaker 3: was Steve Job said diamonds come from rubbing to rocks together,
Speaker 3: and so we do need to have somebody to have
Speaker 3: a contrary view and that keeps us all in check.
Speaker 3: But also out of that conversation, a look at the
Speaker 3: conversation that's happened since that comment was said. We're getting
Speaker 3: some great viewpoints of some different ways of things things
Speaker 3: and that's how we stay modernized. I guess that's how
Speaker 3: we develop as a society.
Speaker 2: Just what I mean. Look, it seems her comments around
Speaker 2: police abolition and all that sort of stuff to me
Speaker 2: just barking mad. Are there any other models around New
Speaker 2: Zealand around the world where there's something that isn't a
Speaker 2: police force that sort of works, because is it just
Speaker 2: a you know, something.
Speaker 3: It's called military.
Speaker 2: See, I don't think.
Speaker 3: That that's the only one that I've seen that actually
Speaker 3: works or you know, and that's either from dictatorships, and
Speaker 3: we don't want to have that. So in a democracy
Speaker 3: there is there is I have not seen. There has
Speaker 3: to be policed, right, So we've seen all these utopian
Speaker 3: societies where people there is no police and we all
Speaker 3: live in harmony. But at some point when somebody steps wrong,
Speaker 3: there has to be a committee. You've gone before, so
Speaker 3: it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Just the people talk about the Marray Wardens and the
Speaker 2: role that they play in other community organizations. Can you
Speaker 2: just give a description of I don't mean, what's wrong
Speaker 2: with that idea, but the limits of that because I
Speaker 2: think that would be to try and place the role
Speaker 2: of beat police with mary Warden's would be putting a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot on mary Wardens, wouldn't it, Because
Speaker 2: they can ran, they can be a range of ages
Speaker 2: and all sorts of physical competencies as well, despite the
Speaker 2: fact they might be great people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen it work, and I've seen it work
Speaker 3: very very successfully, and it works in other countries. We've
Speaker 3: got quite a in New Zealand. We should be very
Speaker 3: proud with having out mary Wardens because they have the
Speaker 3: ability and even look the cool of the older ones
Speaker 3: that get in there and with these young people and
Speaker 3: they you know, are able to sort of speak since
Speaker 3: because they've been around and they have the respect. So
Speaker 3: and we had it when I was first on the beat,
Speaker 3: and that was a long time ago to thirty years ago.
Speaker 3: We would have that we would meet up with the
Speaker 3: Marley Wardens on a night shift and we'd work from
Speaker 3: the same office as us and we'd all go out
Speaker 3: and you know, and they were able to get into
Speaker 3: into homes and into places that police would not ever get.
Speaker 3: So having those sorts of things and having and there's
Speaker 3: a range of then there's the community patrols as well.
Speaker 3: Having range of those is how we do it. We
Speaker 3: police ourselves in supporting one organization, I think.
Speaker 2: And just finally, do these sort of comments bother police particularly?
Speaker 2: And how would you judge the morale of the police
Speaker 2: because we have a new police commissioner and everyone seems
Speaker 2: that inside the force morale's pretty good, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Oh, morales through the roof?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: In fact, yeah, I've just been I've been Willington just
Speaker 3: for the last two weeks and you can see heads
Speaker 3: up and I'm loving seeing an Auckland City police on
Speaker 3: the beat. You know, two people walking together. Look, you
Speaker 3: could put any amount of ambassadors and street patrols, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But when you see two police officers walking down the street,
Speaker 3: that has that whole different feeling. That's the feeling of
Speaker 3: I'm safe. And so yeah, look, I think comments like
Speaker 3: that have been made. I'm not sure. I'd love to
Speaker 3: see the research of how we could police without police.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're really seriously exploring that. Just one
Speaker 2: last question. So I said the last one was the last,
Speaker 2: but I've got one more. Why is police? What is
Speaker 2: the change that has made police morale so high, because
Speaker 2: it's my outsider's view is simply they love the new
Speaker 2: police commissioner, the tools that they've been given as well,
Speaker 2: and they're cracking.
Speaker 3: On That's exactly it. So when you get some additional
Speaker 3: tools to help deal with gettings for example, or any
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not just picking on we're talking on
Speaker 3: organized criminal gangs. Were not talking gangs and gang patches.
Speaker 3: But when you have new tools, a new commissioner who
Speaker 3: I have worked with, he's a practical guy and he's
Speaker 3: going to he's already made some change at the top.
Speaker 3: Is that going on and they've got some new yep. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: Mark Mitchell great minister to have there. You know, you
Speaker 3: see him out there doing push up and all sorts
Speaker 3: of things with them. So having that sort of yeah,
Speaker 3: they they're really in a much better place than they were.
Speaker 3: They're still getting poached from overseas from Australia, but that's
Speaker 3: always been going on. It's been going on for years.
Speaker 3: But with this new drive, I'm happy that there's a
Speaker 3: whole lot of new younger police officers coming in to
Speaker 3: take the place of the ones. At least good stuff.
Speaker 2: Hey, Lance really appreciate your time this opening. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
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