Bush silent on Haumaha appointment
WELLINGTON: Police Commissioner Mike Bush is refusing to be drawn on whether Wally Haumaha’s controversial appointment to deputy commissioner has undermined confidence in police culture.
And he has revealed that the current track to have 1800 extra police officers — a commitment in the Labour and New Zealand First coalition agreement — is at present funded to be delivered over five years, not three years.
Police top management were grilled yesterday by MPs on the justice select committee during an attimes heated hearing, as National MPs sought answers from Mr Bush about what he knew and when about the Haumaha appointment as deputy police commissioner.
An inquiry, completed by Mary Scholtens QC last Friday, has been handed to the Government and looked at the process leading to Mr Haumaha’s appointment, but is yet to be publicly released.
National police spokesman Chris Bishop asked Mr Bush repeatedly about Mr Haumaha’s comments to Operation Austin in 2004, and whether that undermined confidence in police culture that had changed since the royal commission of inquiry into police culture.
‘‘Some of that good progress will be put at risk by that appointment [and] specifically the comments he made to the Operation Austin inquiry. Did you know about those comments when Mr Haumaha was being promoted from assistant to deputy commissioner?’’
Mr Bush replied that he did not want to answer before the inquiry was released, adding his assurance that police would continue to make progress and that ‘‘we are now in a really good space’’.
MPs from Labour and National then sparred about whether Mr Bush should answer the question.
At one point, National MP Nick Smith said Labour MPs had blocked a motion to postpone the hearing until after the inquiry was released, which was ‘‘cynical manipulation by the police and the Government’’.
Mr Smith said Mr Haumaha’s comments had prompted Louise Nicholas, whose case sparked Operation Austin, to doubt how much the police culture had progressed.
‘‘Why should we have confidence when Louise Nicholas doesn’t?’’
Mr Bush again declined to answer. — NZME