rarau mai ki te hui. Ko Mihingarangi tenei. E mihi atu nei ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to the Hui ` Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei ` Are Maori over-policed? - I can remember being handcuffed behind my back and my head stomped on. - I think it is common knowledge that Maori are over-policed. - Do Maori believe police are racist? - There's bias, probably. I wouldn't call it racism. - I think everybody's got a bit of prejudice in them. - We reveal the results of a special poll of Maori experiences of policing. - Don't know how many times I've been arrested just walking along the street, and they pull you up and they ask you questions. - Back in my days with the police, yes, we got targeted hard. - And our panel breaks down the results. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 - In almost every police statistic, Maori are overrepresented. Maori are 16.7% of the population, but account for almost 44% of police procedures. Some say that's because Maori commit more crime. Others, that it points to racism endemic in the police force. The police are doing their own work around this, and we'll talk about that shortly, but first, we polled a representative sample of Maori about their experiences with police. And we started by asking ` overall, do you believe the New Zealand police force is racist toward Maori? 28% believe there is institutional or systemic racism in the police force. 40% say some individual officers are racist towards Maori. 4% say all police are racist. So that's a total of 72% who believe there is some degree of racism in our police force. 22% say there's none at all, and 6% don't know. And that's a huge result. Nearly three quarters of Maori surveyed believe the police are racist in some way. We wanted to find out what lay behind those answers. So next we asked ` have you or someone in your whanau experienced racial discrimination by the New Zealand police in the past five years? 37% said yes, they or a member of their whanau had experienced police racism over the last five years. 23% had experienced it once or twice, 4%, five times or more. 47% had never experienced racism by a police officer, and 16% said they didn't know. We'll discuss the results of our poll with the Hui panel shortly. But first, I caught up with Ta Kim Workman, who heads the independent panel investigating bias against Maori within the New Zealand Police. And I began by asking, when will Maori attitudes towards police change? - Well, it'll take generations, I guess. But what I would say is that the process has already started. And what's been really uplifting is to witness the police having those difficult discussions amongst themselves. And I think we're in a place where the police realise or are starting to realise that when we talk about systemic racism, we're not talking about them personally. We're talking about changing the way the organisation works. And the evidence is pretty clear that unconscious bias training is ineffective. You know, why do people feel that the police are racist? Is it about personal behaviour? Because the evidence suggests that that's a very small part of it, and that it's more likely to be around the procedures. - Can you tell us about the police buy-in ` are you feeling confident that you're going to have open door policy to do your mahi? - As those conversations have continued, that willingness to engage in difficult conversations has increased. - You said earlier, it takes generations to see some real change. But how do you put some measurements in that are going to please everybody? - If we find areas that we can change now, we'll do it now. Things like police stops and deciding who's going to get charged and who's not, the way we use force and make decisions about using force, if we can improve those areas, it will benefit everybody. - I'm joined now by Inspector Scott Gemmell, who heads the Police Operations Advisory Unit, justice reform advocate Julia Whaipooti, and Rahui Papa, a long-standing member of the Police Maori Focus Forum. Tena koutou katoa. It's wonderful to have you all in the same room to have this wananga. Rahui, I'll come to you. You're working with Ta Kim on this piece of work. When a poll result turns out like that, you know, two thirds of the respondents have experienced racism, is it overwhelming? Where do you start? - That's why you got to give kudos to the commissioner for actually instigating this and bringing Ta Kim and a group together to actually look at it. So, you know, Commissioner Bush talked about unconscious bias, and Commissioner Coster has actually brought a group together to do these sorts of, you know, stats, analysis, so that we can start changing the dial, because it's got to start today. - Julia, we have lawmakers` some lawmakers still say that, you know, they don't believe there is systemic racism or bias even. Does that make it more difficult to get the job done, to start it? - It's just is quite outdated. It's difficult to address an issue if you don't own the issue. And the ship's sailed on. I mean, previous police commissioner has owned systemic racism within the police. The current commissioner is actively` has appointed this group to address it, and our whanau and have spoken loudly for longer than I've been alive about their own experiences. So catch up, you know? You're either in or you're in the way in terms of addressing this stuff. - When Ta Kim says it takes generations` it was going to take generations to start seeing some change of attitudes of Maori towards the police, he does point to some good change that's happening, that he thinks` and it's the growth of diversity of the police officer inside of a force. Are you seeing that? - Yeah, I am. I think it's important to understand the historical context that's got us to this point as well, and bringing a panel on board is something I feel quite privileged to even be a part of. But when we look at the most recent wing that graduated only a few days ago, the Arihia Stirling wing, had over 28 Maori on that wing out of 70, and the majority, I think it was about 22 Maori women. Now that's amazing and should be celebrated, because it was only five years ago that there'd be 22 Maori over a whole recruit year, and it's been achieved in one wing. So I think that is` we should be cognisant that's a start, and we still need to keep working towards it. - Yeha, I think even the first` the very first story we did for the Hui seven years ago was a Maori woman who just couldn't get into the police force. And so, yeah, you're right, seeing those numbers is actually fantastic. When Scott talks about having to think about historically what's happened with us, as an iwi historian of an iwi who was literally invaded by the Crown, how do you bring that conversation, and is it accepted? Are people happy to talk about it? - Well, everyone across the country knows that there's been a love-hate relationship with the constabulary, right from the 1800s, right through to the present. And I think that the consequences of raupatu have a lot to do with it, you know, historically. And I think that iwi across the country are looking to the terminologies around e kore tenei whakaoranga e huri ki tua o aku mokopuna. It's our obligation and responsibility to provide our tamariki and mokopuna a better platform than the one that we inherited. And that includes not only our policing, it includes the corrections, it includes all of the negative stats that we're facing in trying to bolster the positive stats as well. - It's interesting, cos we're talking about the whole criminal justice system right there. And while this is focussed just on police, it has to be the wider conversation, doesn't it? - I think there's definitely two things ` systemic racism exists within every government agency, so police aren't unique in that. However, I think the conversation needs to be shifting. I agree, matua, that we should be` we need to leave things better for our mokopuna to inherit. I was born the year Puao-te-Ata-tu was released, He Whaipaanga Hou from Matua Moana Jackson was released, those statistics and experiences have not changed for our whanau. My vision and hope is recognising as well that it is not the role of the police or corrections ` and they can never be this ` to provide the care and support to our whanau, cos right now the role of the police has expanded dramatically that they need to be responding to mental health call outs, to issues resulting in alcohol and drugs. And they're` they shouldn't be that, and they can never be that for our whanau. So we need to be having that conversation about how do we leave things better set up for our mokopuna, and I really think it's about reducing the reach of these agencies into the lives of our whanau. - Mm. We're really grateful for you in this wananga. You know, it's actually rare to have someone from police talking with our academics and our iwi leaders and the rest of it. In terms of your mahi, as Julia says, it's not just about police, it's about dealing with mental health. It's dealing about health and poverty and the rest of it. Are we ready for that conversation? Are the doors open? Are the ears open in those other ministries for you to talk to? - That's a hard one for me to answer. Like, I think there are. There's people within our other agencies across the wider criminal justice system that are looking at what we're looking at as well. But I'm really focussed on what we can do. For a long time, police have been dealing with a lot of things that are downstream of what are not happening or people are struggling to make. These are really complex issues, really complex problems, and unfortunately we get the call ` the 111 call when people are at their` They're probably on their worst day, you know? But what we can do when we get on their worst day is try to find outcomes for them that are going to be better. That are going to lead to better outcomes for them. And if it means that we're conducting research into our bias, that it operates within an operational organisational level, then let's do it. - Interesting there, because I think we all understand is when someone's on their worst day, it's not just the police that are going to be able to support them, it's got to be multiple agencies. Where do iwi come in in that kind of sense? Is there is a place for iwi Maori, post settlement? - Yeah, very much so. So it's about whanau standing up for whanau, and whanau supporting whanau. You know, so, the police might get the 111 call, but actually living with the experience is within the whanau. And, you know, all of those negative stats are prevalent. You know, and so iwi are bending over backwards to try and figure out how we might be able to support, and I agree with Julia that it's actually not just government agencies that have to do this. Actually, sometimes they just need to get out of the road and let whanau and iwi do it for themselves, because we're finding in other sort of avenues, we're actually working pretty well with our whanau, and the whanau have a lot more trust and confidence in whanau rather than the boys in blue or, you know, the, the other colours of the agencies. - Ka pai. We've got so much more to unpack in the poll, including ` how do Maori feel about the criminal justice system overall? We'll be back shortly with this panel. E taro ake nei ` Next in our Horizon Research Poll, we asked Maori to rate how confident they were that the justice system overall performs fairly for Maori. 14% are very confident, 7% are confident, 18% are somewhat confident. A total of 39% have some degree of confidence that the justice system is fair for Maori. But 18% are somewhat not confident that the system is fair. 19% are not confident in the justice system's fairness, and the same number, 19%, are not confident at all. So that's more than half ` 55% are not confident of fairness for Maori in the justice system. So back to our panel, then. More than half of those polled are not confident the system's fair for Maori. How much of a concern is that, or is that normal for you? - Not concerned at all. I mean, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, for Maori, for police, for our communities, and we know our histories. We know statistically as well, the different outcomes for Maori that go through, as people who are charged through that process and also majority of whanau who are victimised. - Can you give us the process, the justice system, like, what are we missing in there when we talk about police and the courts? Is there more to it? - Well, I think there are a lot of different things. We can talk about the pipeline and what that looks like. But I think what we were talking about earlier, Scott and Matua here, were talking about police having to be the one-stop call for people to make contact when they're in their worst day. The police should not have to be that. Their role has expanded hugely, and as Rahui had said, that iwi, whanau, hapu, hapori, we are ready. We need to be looking at reallocating the resources to our own communities to engage with that need. That shouldn't be the role of police. And I've, you know, heard korero from police that they don't want to be responding to stuff that shouldn't be their mahi. We need to be reducing police presence in our whanau, when, you know, half of our whanau will never have trust and confidence in the police. And I truly believe that. And that's not the role of the police to try to fix that. We shouldn't be investing in trying to brand policing better within our communities. There are some parts of our communities that they can and never will trust the police, and therefore our whanau still deserve support. It doesn't need to be the police and it shouldn't have to be. That needs to change for our whanau. - In some of the early research that we heard about at the beginning of this month, actually, and it was the stuff that was launched last year, they found that there is bias within the police and there's some problems, but they don't know where in the pipeline the problem is. They don't know where to start. Where do you think it is? - That's because we shouldn't be tinkering around with just selective parts. Actually, it's, you know, in Dame June Mariu's words, mai i te kopu o te whaea ki te kopu o te whenua. And so it starts with Oranga Tamariki. It starts with the education system. It starts with the Ministry of Social Development. All of those things have an impact on the lives of people. And so, you know, when you come to the courts and the police and the corrections, actually, we're talking to heads of bench when we're talking about systemic changes within the court system. The New Zealand police with their advisory board, the corrections with their strategy, Hokai Rangi. You know, there's a whole lot of strategies out there. It's about getting in there and doing something about it. And sometimes it's about, well, that's a wonderful strategy, but devolve the resource ` like Julia said ` devolve the resource to hapori, devolve the resources to whanau to make sure that we get the calls, so that we can we can wrap around our whanau in the best possible ways. - I just want to touch on that point, though. Yes, there's all these policies and strategies and all of that, and I agree with what Matua said, but we know the pointy end of it means that our whanau are more likely to be policed, more likely to be charged, prosecuted, more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to have our children removed from them for interacting with police in the system. And so those are the lived realities of our whanau, and Hokai Rangi is an amazing strategy, but you can't give life to that within the system that inherently can't be trusted by Maori. And that's where it goes back to community and to our own whanau to run the solutions. - So when we look at those stats, 55% have some kind of not confidence in the police. Sorry, that's bad English, but 20% of that have none. And when you're hearing the work that iwi and whanau want to do, do you suspect that some of those people are involved in that area of policing the difficult stuff around the Oranga Tamariki, the, you know, having to interfere and to intervene into people's lives? - Mm. Yeah. I'm encouraged when I hear of community, hapori, those that are involved in an area that are really community oriented, looking at pathways for their own. I really am encouraged by that. I'm` I still think ` I know Julia said that there's some that will be just really too hard for us to reach ` some whanau, some hapori, that are too hard. It doesn't abrogate us from trying. You know, we are prepared to open our policies and our practice and our procedure, our training up, to be able to find the most equitable service that we can do. Because we've got to a point now, I think we're at a turning point for us now, where we can actually push forward and make some changes, as Ta Kim earlier. It will be difficult. It will be difficult for us to get into some of these communities, but it doesn't abrogate from us trying. - Is it about relationships? Is that the key thing? Say if you've got great relationships with your local hapu, iwi, whatever, if you've got those, does it make policing easier? - I think it all starts from relationships. People have to understand, and even back to the panel, when we first had our joint hui with Sir Kim's panel, and I have the privilege of being the chair of an operational group. The key to that, when we had two sides in one room that didn't know who each other was, was to find that there is actually a common intention. We really want to do the best we can for our hapori. So too does the panel. - We're going to` - That was key, though, Mihi, because bringing in the people on the ground with those within the community was key, because you actually have to identify the problem to find the supported resolutions for those problems. And I think that there's a lot out there. - Kia ora. We've just got to go to` Let's have a look at these. Maori are also overrepresented as victims of crime. More than half of Maori surveyed have been a victim, and 46% had laid a complaint with police. So older Maori we're more likely to lay a complaint than those under 35, and men we're more significantly more likely to lay a complaint than women. We also found Maori victims with lower household incomes were less likely to go to police. And after the break, we'll look at why that might be. E taro ake nei ` had laid a complaint with police in the past five years. Let's look at how well they feel police did. One in five found police were excellent. About the same number thought they were very good, and 29% said they were very good. So 69% of Maori were happy with the way police handled their complaint. 11% reckon police handling was somewhat poor. 7% said it was poor, and 13% said it was very poor. But despite believing there's racism in the police and all the negative statistics, more than 80% of Maori still value the work of the police. So, yeah. So you've got 20% who don't have the confidence, but you've got 80 who still think that there's value in the police. Does it give you optimism to carry on and working through these things? - Absolutely. When I read the results and just heard them again, I was pleasantly surprised, and happy, really, because it means that the toil that many have before us done in order to try and build value worth from police to our communities, is paying dividends. However, I also look at the 20%. I look at the numbers that have laid a complaint and have felt that there was value there as well and we've done a good job. But there's always another side there. There's people that are missing out on the service that they deserve as well, so it gives us more drive to carry on and do what needs to be done in order to meet their expectations and what they deserve. - That's pretty generous, eh, of Maori, given that so many of them have been discriminated against, that 80% still have faith in the system. - I think it's a bit of newsreel, actually, because, you know, with the so many thinking that there still is systemic bias or systemic racism within the police, and then 80% who have actually been in contact with the police thought that they were pretty good. But that means that the New Zealand police have some more work to do, because we're not stopping at 80. We want 100% of people to say, 'Our interactions with the police have been awesome.' I know it's a pie in the sky, but that's where we should be aiming. - I want to break down some of those numbers, if I can, with you, Julia. So, there's a large number of women who don't report. Why is that? - Well, makes perfect sense to me, given the amount of` a number of women I've spoken to who are mamas contacting the police, often in domestic violence situations. What that triggers is actually Oranga Tamariki. So the fear of losing their child or having their child taken from them outweighs the fear of dealing with, you know, the fists of their partner or whoever it is that they're engaged with, which is a problem. We need somewhere safe for our whanau to go to where they can get safety and they can feel safe, and it's not the police and it never will be in that situation. - Yeah. So how important is the data? So you guys are all working in the area of data. Why is it important to have data around this? - Oh, it's hugely important, because that's how you can look at where the problems are and appropriate the resources that are needed to find the solutions for those problems. And actually, the collection of data means a conversation with whanau, and that's the ultimate thing for me. So it's not actually the numbers, it's the act of having the conversation with a whanau to get where they want to go and then finding whanau solutions for whanau issues. - Has the data been helpful? Actually having some tangible numbers? Because we didn't used to do the inequity numbers before. - Absolutely. I think it's been` it is excellent, because any change that we wish to implement needs a really good evidential foundation. And then as the data comes through, then it's opening up the korero, opening up the conversation around what's in behind that. The survey you did opens up so many questions that will just help us to understand the picture, understand how we can deliver a service that's even better, and expected it, actually. - Final thoughts on the poll? - Not a surprise. I will give credit where it's due, and the police are doing active steps to address the bias and racism within their own systems and structures, and to our own whanau and people. We must imagine more in terms of where we get our support and help from, and I just think that some of the roles of the police needs to shift, corrections, OT, back to our hapori and community. They're funded billions of dollars, actually let's reallocate that to our whanau, our communities, who can be that support for our whanau. - And for you, Scott? Any final thoughts for you on the poll? - No, I... Whenever things` When, like, in building up to something, I like to go out with our operational staff as much as I can to really understand what are the pressures that they have when they're going to a family violence situation or family harm incident. And then, the only word I can think of that describes it, is they pivot. And they pivot to someone whose mother is upset because their son's just tried to commit suicide. They do this within the space of an hour. And I'm really impressed with what they do and how they can do this and how they look at every situation. And even simple things like reducing numbers in a home to reduce the impact that it has. So even if we can have a groundswell of people in our organisation, at that constable level, at the sergeant level, that are doing great things at their level, then it's our responsibility to lead that out. - Ka pai. And Rahui. - Well, the police motto is, 'E tu ki te kei o te waka, kia whakapakia koe ki nga ngaru o te wa.' You know, and that sea spray that's coming at the police will take different shapes and different forms over different times. And I think that the adaptability, I think that the New Zealand police leadership in bringing these issues to the fore, to bring in actually those on the ground, those within the community, the academics, the stats guys, the, you know, all of those brought them together will find a solution, I think. And that's where we've got to focus. It's got to be solutions-focussed and not just an inheritance of bad form. - A good place to leave it. Tena koutou katoa. Thank you so much for joining our wananga and our poll. Tena koutou. Kua hikina te hui e hoa ma. Noho ora mai ra. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022