Lockboxes are being fitted to the cars to make police-issue semi-automatic rifles and pistols more accessible to response staff. Photo / file

All frontline police response cars will have special lockable containers fitted and more than half will carry firearms at all times by July next year.

The timeline was confirmed in this month’s issue of Ten-One Magazine.

Lockboxes are being fitted to the cars to make police-issue semi-automatic rifles and pistols more accessible to response staff.

Police Commissioner Peter Marshall, who signed off $6 million for the project, has said weapons were a last resort, but also that it was pointless having them if they were not easily accessible.

“If we have these items, I don’t see any point in them sitting in a police station. I’d rather have them in a mobile police station.”

Staff will receive extra firearms training and the new guns will be allocated to the 12 police districts using the same formula used to allocate tasers when they were introduced in 2010.

The formula takes into account each district’s geographical size, number of response staff and level of risk, which is determined by use-of-force reports.

A Southern police district spokeswoman said the work assessing what was already available in the district and what was required had just begun.

It was not known at this stage when the district’s fleet that did not already have lockboxes would get them but by July next year, 61 per cent will have them.

At present, most police patrol cars do not carry firearms.

In this month’s Ten-One Magazine, Police National Headquarters policing support manager Inspector Jason Ross said the project meant the majority of police’s firearms stock would be transferred from police stations to response vehicles, where they would be immediately accessible if needed.

More than 1400 vehicles being used by response groups, including general duties staff, strategic traffic units and highway patrols, would then be equipped to carry firearms. Most cars were already equipped to carry tasers.

Firearms would still be available to other non-response related groups from police stations, he said.

“By July 2012, 61 per cent of [vehicles in the response fleet] will actually carry these weapons, an increase in accessibility of 63 per cent.”

Police would also get 49 per cent more ballistic armour sets to match the improved firearms capability, making more than 1600 sets available to staff to use during firearms incidents.

Critics have said the move will result in guns being used more frequently, and that essentially, because they spend so much time in the cars, it is routinely arming police.

Police Association president Greg O’Connor said lockboxes were an option, but “not a great one”. They were “a halfway house”, but with nine officers shot in two years, the status quo was not an option, he said.

- Otago Daily Times

By Debbie Porteous of the Otago Daily Times

Students helping to clean up Rydall Street in the Christchurch suburb of Hoon Hay after the first quake. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A Christmas visit to volunteers helping quake-stricken Christchurch suburbs may see new Minister of Civil Defence, Napier MP Chris Tremain, link government and the Student Volunteer Army.

Mr Tremain, who took up the ministerial role this month, spent yesterday shovelling liquefaction silt with volunteers in the hard-hit eastern suburb of New Brighton.

He also spent part of the day meeting with University of Canterbury student and the army’s co-ordinator, Sam Johnson, discussing ways the government could work with the volunteers.

“I spent about an hour with him talking through some of the issues he had co-ordinating volunteers between Civil Defence and his organisation, and to see if there were ways in the future we could streamline that,” he said.

“I think there needs to be a way that we can close that chasm between professional organisations and the groups of people that team up on the spot, and see if we can help these two types of volunteers to work together.”

Mr Tremain said it had been a huge year for volunteers in New Zealand.

“Volunteers have come out in their thousands around the country to help when the chips were down,” he said.

“On Boxing Day there were more than 400 people volunteering in Christchurch.”

Mr Tremain was one of the coordinators of the Magpie Army that helped out after the flooding in Waimarama.

He said volunteering not only got work done, but was a “psychological lift” to stricken home-owners and affected residents.

hbt mt gf

-APNZ

- HAWKES BAY TODAY

By Morgan Tait of Hawke’s Bay Today

File photo / NZ Herald

Politicians are unlikely to make changes to MMP that will make their road into Parliament more difficult, and the public needs to pressure for improvement to the voting system, the Voters for Change group says.

A consultation paper was released today for an Electoral Commission review of the voting system, and chief electoral officer Robert Peden said public submissions would be open until May 31.

The commission’s final report and recommendations will be given to Justice Minister Judith Collins on October 31, which Mr Peden said would give the Government enough time to legislate any changes before the 2014 election.

However, Voters for Change spokesman Jordan Williams said he was concerned MPs would ignore recommendations from the review if the public did not get involved.

“If not very many people engage in the review, if there’s not much public discussion, then the politicians can easily side line it,” he said.

“It depends what the recommended changes are … but turkeys don’t vote for an early Christmas, and politicians don’t generally vote for a more accountable voting system.”

Voters for Change was particularly concerned with the current MMP thresholds, and called for the removal of what it called the “Epsom rule” – the one-seat threshold that allows an electorate MP to bring in “coat-tail” MPs, even if the party does not reach the required 5 per cent threshold.

Former Act leader Rodney Hide took a number of MPs into Parliament with him when he won the Epsom seat in 2005 and in 2008, despite the party not reaching the threshold.

New Zealand First received only 4.3 per cent of the party vote in 1999, but leader Winston Peters brought four MPs into Parliament after he held on to his Tauranga seat with a 63-vote margin.

The thresholds are among the topics the commission has already slated for discussion in the review, along with other controversial issues such as dual candidacy and who decides party lists.

Dual candidacy is responsible for so-called “back-door” MPs. The controversial rule allows candidates to stand for an electorate and on a party list, meaning that in some cases an electorate MP can be thrown out by their local constituency but get back into Parliament on the list.

Labour’s Clayton Cosgrove was saved by the rule last year, when he was voted out of his long-held Waimakariri seat, and National’s Kate Wilkinson replaced him. Another notable case was former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, who won the Coromandel seat in 1999, lost it in the following election, but remained in Parliament on the list.

The consultation paper also specifically raises the issues of whether list MPs should be able to stand in by-elections, what should happen if a party wins more electorate seats that it is entitled to through the party vote, and the list to electorate seat ratio.

Mr Peden said the questions posed in the paper had been deliberately left reasonably open, and people were free to raise other issues.

“Anything that relates to how New Zealanders think we might improve MMP, we want to hear about,” he said.

Issues around Maori representation, eligibility to vote, and other issues not directly relating to MMP will not be looked in the review.

Past MMP reviews had received mixed levels of response, ranging from 200 to 800 submissions, and Mr Peden said he expected submission hearings to be held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Depending on the demand, hearings could be held in more provincial areas as well.

About $1.6 million has been put aside for the review, and the funds are expected to predominantly be used for advertising.

- APNZ

By Amelia Romanos | Email Amelia

The holiday road toll has ended at 18. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The official holiday driving period has finished this morning, with 18 people dying on New Zealand’s roads.

The period ran from 4pm December 23 to 6am this morning.

During the same period last year 12 people were killed, while in 2009/10 13 people died.

Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said the toll was a “disappointing result”.

“Every fatality and serious injury is a tragedy for the families and loved ones of those involved,” Mr Brownlee said.

“Many people will still be returning from holidays and I urge drivers to take extra care to focus on the job at hand.

“By driving responsibly, and to the conditions, we can lessen the chances of a crash to ensure this disappointing trend over the holiday period doesn’t continue through the year.”

Mr Brownlee said the Ministry of Transport will be looking closely at the causes of the fatal crashes over the holiday period.

“It looks like speed has been an issue and it appears many of those that died may not have been wearing seatbelts.

“Ministry officials will be analysing all the crashes so we get a better understanding of the factors behind this holiday’s high road toll as well as researching the low road toll of 2011.”

While the holiday road toll was high, the death toll for the year was 284, down from 369 from the year before.

- Herald online

The amount of crime is escalating in Wellington. Photo / NZ Herald

Police say robberies in Wellington have spiked and have appealed for public after at least four incidents in the past three days.

On Monday, a man held up a Newlands dairy with a knife, escaping with cigarettes. Yesterday an Auckland couple was charged in relation to this robbery.

In other incidents yesterday, a hotel worker in Karori was punched in the head before two offenders stole money and a man held up the Khandallah Post Shop with a gun.

At about 10.30pm on Tuesday night, an 18-year-old man was assaulted and robbed by at least two men in an alley.

Salvors pictured standing on fallen shipping containers onboard the MV Rena. Photo / Alan Gibson

Stricken ship Rena may have split into two pieces after getting pounded by 5m swells this weekend.

The list and the heading of the aft section had changed overnight, which meant it had “possibly” split in two, a Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman said.

This couldn’t be confirmed until an aerial overview of the ship had been completed, but bad weather meant this was not able to happen yesterday.

The boat was not moving off the Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga, she said.

Salvage work on the ship was put on hold, but salvors were hoping to make it back on to the ship tomorrow.

- APNZ

By Hana Garrett-Walker | Email Hana

Around 100-150 police officers around the country will trial the new technology. Photo / File

As well as Tasers, Glocks and rifles, frontline police will be armed with smartphones, laptops and iPad-like tablets this year in an effort to increase numbers on the streets.

The “mobility of technology” trial starting this month will see the new technology in the hands of 100 to 150 officers in Hawkes Bay, Lower Hutt, the West Coast and Counties-Manukau West.

The trial is expected to allow officers to process charges while on the beat, saving them a trip back to the station.

Police Commissioner Peter Marshall told the Herald officers were spending too much time behind desks.

“You go into police stations in times gone by and there are too many police officers sitting on computers. This way they can do it on laptops or iPads in their cars and stay in the street.

“Anything that keeps them out of the station and on the road, moving from one job to another in a proactive way, makes sense.”

If the trial was successful, the devices could be rolled out further and be linked to both police and court databases, he said.

“In due course, someone who breaks a bottle on the street, for instance, rather than bringing them back to the police station, we might be able to write out an infringement notice to appear in court on this particular date.”

Mr Marshall said the technology was already being used by road police.

“We have smart devices, a thousand of them, and road police have them now. They will punch in the details, the checks to see if the person is wanted.

“The docket can be given straight away and they don’t have to fight for radio space or go back to the station for correspondence.”

Police would not reveal the cost of the trial, saying the information was commercially sensitive.

Meanwhile by June this year 2700-odd frontline police vehicles are expected to have a lock-box containing a Taser, a Glock, a Bushmaster rifle and body armour. About half of the vehicles have a fully equipped lock-box already.

The increase in resources is the result of a police review of access to firearms completed about a year ago.

By Derek Cheng | Email Derek

Be considerate when you use your mobile phone in public. Photo / Getty Images

With a population density of 5937 people a square kilometre and an average commute time of about an hour, in Tokyo the niggles of public life matter.

Which might be why talking on mobile phones on the city’s train system is frowned upon, and posters remind commuters that even texting is forbidden on priority seating for the elderly.

In New Zealand, the rudeness factor is related to the subject of conversation and duration of the phone call.

Fellow passengers will be forgiving if you receive a phone call and are then told about the death of your pet or that your house has been burgled.

They will be less so if you make the call and then proceed to shout loudly, “Buy, sell, buy, buy, sell”.

Personal grooming such as combing your hair or touching up makeup is probably acceptable in moderation, but any grooming with a risk of projectiles such as flossing or clipping toenails is absolutely unacceptable.

New Zealand passports are highly sought after. Photo / NZ Herald

Police are investigating nearly 50 false New Zealand passports, discovered during checks being done before a new online passport renewal system is introduced this year.

New Zealand passports are highly sought after by local and international criminal networks, and the 47 false documents found last year were many more than usual in recent years.

Documents released under the Official Information Act reveal the discovery was made because the Department of Internal Affairs is introducing an automatic process to enable adults to renew passports online next year.

In a bid to “cleanse” the database before online renewal begins, 4.5 million passport photos were matched against each other by facial recognition technology – a total of 21 trillion biometric checks.

Of those, 210,000 possible matches had to be checked by human eyes and most were discovered to be clerical or imaging errors or identical twins.

But the checks found 47 false passports.

Department of Internal Affairs general manager of passports David Philp said most passport fraud was committed by New Zealand citizens who had genuine passports but sought another in a fake identity.

“That could be for a whole lot of reasons,” said Mr Philp.

“They may want to travel to a country where their criminal record may stop that, they may want to travel to a country where they have convictions, or they’re involved in financial fraud or organised crime.”

The introduction in 2003 of data-matching with the deaths register – so passports are automatically cancelled when someone dies – had led to a marked decrease in the number of false passports, Mr Philp said.

In the six years before 2003, there were 288 cases. In 2003, there were 41 and since then, only 162.

Today’s passports, which have an electronic chip, were harder to forge than the old-style documents. Passports must now be renewed every five years, which Mr Philp said reduced the likelihood of fraud.

New Zealand’s reputation as a law-abiding nation makes its passports valuable to criminals.

“A person carrying a New Zealand passport doesn’t seem a threat internationally,” Mr Philp said. “We’re not a high-risk country, and we don’t get the scrutiny that others do.”

The biometric matching has already led to one man being convicted. Yaumeng Lum unlawfully obtained legitimate documentation belonging to Malaysian-born New Zealand citizen Peter Hui, and used it to obtain a passport in that name.

Twice he reported the Hui passports lost, and they were replaced.

He also used the Hui identity to change his name by deed poll to Thongviboon, and obtained another passport. In total, Lum travelled on the false passports nine times, including to Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

The Herald has learned Lum is also known as Paul Kwek Min Ou. He was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention last August.

FALSE PASSPORTS

2011 – 47

2010 – 10

2009 – 28

2008 – 12

2007 – 14

By Jared Savage | Email Jared

File photo / NZ Herald

One of the men jailed for abusing Rotorua’s Nia Glassie has been sentenced to a further six months’ jail on charges, including drink driving and breaking into a dairy.

Michael Paul Pearson, 23, appeared in the Rotorua District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to a charge each of burglary, careless driving, unlawfully getting on to a motorcycle and driving while disqualified. He also pleaded guilty to driving a motorcycle in Thomas Cres with a blood alcohol level of 200mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

According to the police summary of facts, Pearson was disqualified from driving for six months on July 5 last year.

About midnight on November 5, police saw Pearson riding a stolen motorcycle on Thomas Cres and followed him on to Leslie Ave. Pearson rode down a pedestrian alleyway where he lost control, hitting a tree. He fled and was found at a Thomas Cres property, then taken to Rotorua Hospital.

Pearson told police he had been drinking alcohol and was meant to take the scooter for a ride around the back lawn but ended up going up the road. Pearson said he knew the bike was stolen, but said he was intoxicated and could not recall the incident.

At the time, Pearson was on bail on a charge of burglary.

Judge Phillip Cooper said Pearson had broken into a Four Square last August by climbing up a wall of the building and removing some glass panels but left when the alarm was activated.

Pearson’s lawyer, Nicky Scott, said Pearson progressed well if he had someone to confide in and sought psychological counselling for him when he was released.

She said when Pearson rode the motorcycle, which was not stolen by him, he was unable to stop and ended up going out on to the road.

Judge Cooper said Pearson had two previous convictions for drink driving and said the starting point was eight months’ jail, but reduced the sentence to six months for the guilty plea.

Pearson had already served the sentence while remanded in custody.

He was banned from driving for a year and ordered to pay reparation of $21. Pearson was also ordered to undergo psychiatric and psychological assessments and receive any treatment or counselling which resulted.

In 2008, Pearson was sentenced to three years’ jail for ill-treating and assaulting 3-year-old Nia Glassie, who died after months of abuse by a number of people. He was released in 2010 and his parole conditions ended in January last year.

- THE DAILY POST

By Abigail Hartevelt of The Daily Post