Today’s budget announcement provides for additional general operational and tactical staff for Auckland.
The funding is part of a package for a range of crime fighting and staffing initiatives, which, combined with additional funding announced last year for activities such as road safety and counter terrorism, provides an additional $15.1 million in the Police baseline budget over the current financial year.
Acting Commissioner Steve Long said the budget allocation provides an additional 50 general operational staff to be employed in the greater Auckland area over the next two years. There will also be sixteen sworn tactical staff for dna and clandestine lab response.
The Auckland initiatives to be funded are:
• 32 additional sworn response staff for metropolitan Auckland, 16 in 2004 calendar year and 16 in 2005. While this staffing allocation has not been specifically tagged it is intended that these staff will generally be involved in incident response type-work.
• 18 additional sworn investigative staff for metropolitan Auckland, nine in 2004 calendar year and 9 in 2005.
• Three DNA collection teams, consisting of two sworn and one non-sworn staff each, operating in the metropolitan Auckland area. These teams are funded to commence in January.
• A clandestine methamphetamine lab response team of five sworn and two non-sworn staff.
Other budget funding initiatives include:
• Another clandestine laboratory team to be based in Wellington supporting investigations in the lower North Island and the South Island.
• Additional staff to operate a centralised covert monitoring unit targeting organised crime activity.
• Establishment of an overseas liaison post in Jakarta to assist with counter terrorism intelligence sharing and investigation.
• Research into increased use of amphetamine-type substances and the development of a family violence assessment tool.
• Provision for additional security requirements associated with hosting the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland in August, and provision for meeting IT costs associated with implementing "clean slate" legislation.
Mr Long said that Police will be very happy to receive additional resources to drive down crime.