New Zealand police are helping their Niue counterparts under their Partnership for Pacific Police Programme.
Transcript
A New Zealand police officer is on Niue to help the local force with prosecutions and in other aspects of policing.
He is there as part of the New Zealand Police's Partnership for Pacific Policing Programme.
This is a four year programme, started in 2013, offering assistance to many of the smaller island countries in the Pacific.
New Zealand's high commissioner to Niue, Ross Ardern, has in the past been the island's police commander and Don Wiseman asked him about the new arrival on the island.
ROSS ARDERN: He's here for the next couple of weeks. He's come to support prosecutions with the Niue Police Service here, and also he will be lending his expertise to strengthen the Niue police in other areas as well, such as community policing and management of staff.
DON WISEMAN: This is a fairly regular occurrence in Niue, is it?
RA: Yes, it's nothing out of the ordinary. It's been happening here in Niue for a number of years, we've had New Zealand police officers come through with the international services group from the New Zealand police supporting policing in Niue - there's nothing out of the ordinary about it.
DW: You, of course, were once the police commander on Niue. It's clearly a very quiet place in terms of policing. What would be the sorts of issues that the local police need to be honed on?
RA: Well, look, there are any number of issues that the police need to be across here in Niue. Not only are they required for policing duties here, but they are also required for aviation security issues as well, so they support all of the border management processes and that takes a fairly hefty lump of their time. They're also required to manage all of the registrations in Niue of vehicles, and dogs, and firearms, and so the list goes on. So they are still remaining quite busy.
DW: Where do they train normally? Just locally?
RA: Yes, their training is done locally with support from New Zealand police, so many of the training modules that New Zealand police complete are also completed by the Niue police, and we've in the past encouraged Niue police to go to the University of the South Pacific distance learning centre here in Niue and complete police training modules here.
DW: This New Zealander who's up there at the moment is also a police prosecutor, and there have been some issues with the local prosecutor over the years.
RA: Only in as much as we've tried to enhance the prosecution standards, those are the only issues that there have been there, and we will continue on that for the foreseeable future. Like any island in the Pacific, New Zealand police are engaged with a wide number of police departments, we look to assist where police commissioners in the Pacific seek our assistance and this is probably just another issue for New Zealand police here in Niue.
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