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Speaker 1: And the government has won its long running pay dispute

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Speaker 1: with the police union, prompting fears of a mass exodus

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Speaker 1: of cops. Both sides had to enter arbitration last year

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Speaker 1: after negotiations stalled, the arbitrators have settled for the government.

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Speaker 1: The offer is fifteen hundred dollars that's a lump some payment,

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Speaker 1: five thousand dollars pay increase. Basically, it's four percent for

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four a pay increase, and four percent for

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, which if you believe Adrian or were

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Speaker 1: when he says he'll get inflation within target, that would

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Speaker 1: actually put that ahead of inflation. However, many cops still unhappy.

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Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell is the police Minister and who joins me now, Minister,

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Hey.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Ryan, how are you good?

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Have you seen any projections on how many

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Speaker 1: police officers might quit the force after this?

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Speaker 2: No, I haven't, but you know, of course, you know, look,

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Speaker 2: I completely understand and feel where they're coming from. But

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Speaker 2: the reality of it is is in incoming government we

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Speaker 2: were really hard to put together what we feel was

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Speaker 2: a really fear offer. You know, at the end of

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Speaker 2: the day, me personally, I was very proud that we

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Speaker 2: for the first time ever in New Zealand, we're going

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Speaker 2: to be paying. We're going to go to paid overtime.

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Speaker 2: And for me that was really significant. I know that

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Speaker 2: in my own police and career, I was a police

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Speaker 2: Doyle cam. I's sort of covering from a toy to wire.

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Speaker 2: There's only two of us. We're working a two week

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Speaker 2: We're working a two week roster side night shift every

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Speaker 2: second week. I had an enormous build up of toil.

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Speaker 2: In fact, I stopped collecting toil because it was not manageable.

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Speaker 2: And if I'd had paid overtime, this young police officer

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Speaker 2: with two kids, I would have loved to have trend

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Speaker 2: listened to that. We've put that in there so I

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Speaker 2: completely totally understand you know the way our police are feeling.

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Speaker 2: But hand on heart right, we've inherited it. We've had

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Speaker 2: a huge hospital pass and we've put together we think

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Speaker 2: is a really fair package.

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Speaker 1: Chris Carhill says many of the police officers who were

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Speaker 1: on the fence about moving to Australia will probably make

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Speaker 1: the call and go now. He also said that the

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Speaker 1: options were either this or there would be jobs job cuts,

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Speaker 1: So either you pay fewer officers more or you pay

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Speaker 1: more officers less. Was that a serious consideration?

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Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't in the detail that. Obviously, the final

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Speaker 2: off arbitration is between the Association and the police, and

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Speaker 2: so I'm not going.

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Speaker 1: To talk to would have Would you have as police minister,

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Speaker 1: would you have let job cuts happen at police?

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Speaker 2: No? Absolutely not. There's no way we were frontline job

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Speaker 2: cuts had happened. I mean, you know, we've inherited an

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Speaker 2: absolute mess and we're fighting our way through and we're

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Speaker 2: determined to start to turn things around. At the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, of course, I don't want to lose

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Speaker 2: police officers to Australia, but the reality of is they've

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Speaker 2: given outstanding public service here in New Zealand and I

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Speaker 2: make the best decisions for them and their family. Look,

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Speaker 2: when I was in the police, the Australians we hear

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Speaker 2: recruiting some of our police officers go most day and

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Speaker 2: at the end of the day, for me, I'm just

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Speaker 2: fully focused on getting on top of the awful situation

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Speaker 2: that's been allowed to grow over the last six years.

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Speaker 2: With me increase in game numbers, in violence, violent retail crime.

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Speaker 2: The only ones that can get on top of this problem.

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Speaker 2: Will have got a big role to play. It's not

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Speaker 2: just the police, it's just the system as well. Are

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Speaker 2: the police are the only one They've got the training

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Speaker 2: and the powers, and we've got to get on top

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Speaker 2: of the problem. And I totally understand it. I'm sensitive

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Speaker 2: to how they're feeling about the pay negotiation.

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Speaker 1: I mean, handle, yeah, I agree with you. I agree

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Speaker 1: with you. They played such a critical role, which is

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Speaker 1: why I'm surprised at the fact that that this has

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Speaker 1: happened the way that it has. And when you've got

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Speaker 1: seventy five percent of the cops voting against the previous offer,

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Speaker 1: which was very similar to this one, and you know,

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Speaker 1: how can you have any credibility with them?

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Speaker 2: No, but it wasn't the last offer. This new offer

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Speaker 2: that our government put on the table is a quarter

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Speaker 2: of a billion dollars more in an environment where as

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Speaker 2: a country, we're paying eight point five billion dollars a

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Speaker 2: year just in interest payments. We've you know, we've got

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Speaker 2: to get our books back in order. We've got to

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Speaker 2: start fighting our way back to a surplus and getting

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Speaker 2: the economy up and running again. And this was in

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Speaker 2: light of that. Just let me recap it. It was a

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Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars lump sum payment. It was a five

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars wage increase and a five point twenty five

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Speaker 2: percent increase in allowances from November one, twenty three. Then

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Speaker 2: we went to a four percent wage increase and corresponding

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Speaker 2: increases to allowances from July one, twenty twenty four, and

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Speaker 2: then another four percent wage increase in corresponding allowances from

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Speaker 2: July one, twenty twenty five, which, like you said, is

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Speaker 2: projected to be above inflation. And on top of that,

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Speaker 2: we had a we went we were transitioning to a

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Speaker 2: paid overtime framework we never had before in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: So it was it was it was an offer that

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Speaker 2: we were really hard as a government to put forward

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Speaker 2: hand on hard. It was the best that we could do.

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Speaker 2: I'm not diminishing the fact that the way that our

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Speaker 2: frontline police are feeling, but you know, a lot some

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Speaker 2: people will make their decisions in terms of what's right

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Speaker 2: for them and their family. For me, I've just got

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Speaker 2: to keep looking forward and I've got to keep trying

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Speaker 2: to deal with, you know, this awful situation that's been

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Speaker 2: were to grow over the last few years.

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Speaker 1: It's Mark Mitchell, the Minister of Police, with us this morning.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your time.

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