Simon Power MP
National Party Justice & Corrections Spokesman
11 March 2008
More questions over 111 system
National's Justice & Corrections spokesman, Simon Power, says Police still cannot tell the public how quickly they can physically respond to
emergency calls, three years after the Government's review into the system had supposedly fixed the problems.
He is commenting after two recent incidents, when it took police more than an hour to respond to a 111 call after an
intruder was found in a six-year-old girl's bedroom, and 43 hours after an operator had hung up on a person reporting a
knifepoint attack at a dairy.
"This is not good enough.
"Since the report into the 111 system in 2005, Police have put a lot of money into building up the communication centres
and developing a non-emergency phone line.
"But the public still doesn't know how well the system is working because the Police themselves have no idea what their
response times are.
"There has been no information on response times for three years because they are still waiting for a new reporting
system.
"It was due to be completed before the end of September last year got pushed back to the end of the year, and is now not
due back until June 30 this year.
"How can the public be assured that response times to priority 1 calls are improving when the Police can't be held
accountable for the past three years?
"The Police Minister must reassure the public that this information will be forthcoming as quickly as possible."
Ends