The coalition government has missed its commitment to deliver 500 new police officers in its first two years. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
The coalition has officially missed its commitment to deliver 500 new police officers in the first two years in government.
But the minister responsible is defending the target, saying it had led to improvements across the recruitment process.
Thursday marks two years since the government was sworn in, three days after the signings of the coalition agreements.
New Zealand First and National's coalition agreement contained a commitment to "training no fewer than 500 new frontline police within the first two years".
A report from the Treasury in September to the finance minister showed September 2026 as the likely target for 500 additional officers, and that would still require significant catch-up.
Nicola Willis had requested a progress update "in light of public reporting on slow progress in meeting this target", as well as information on how Police had used any underspends, and options for returning the funding if the target was not met.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The report said that given the measures Police had taken regarding attrition and recruitment, Police considered it remained "well-positioned" to achieve the target by mid-2026.
"Police has been reluctant to specify a specific month when it expects the target to be achieved but our analysis of the information provided by them suggests the target is likely to be reached in September 2026."
The associate police minister and New Zealand First MP Casey Costello, who was delegated responsibility for the target, said ministers had always said recruitment was an operational responsibility for Police, and did not want to see any drop in standards in pursuit of the target.
Costello said the country had an "incredibly well-trained and quality" constabulary, with the highest number of frontline police in New Zealand's history, and that since the government created the target there had been record numbers of applicants and recruits.
"The timing for 500 new frontline Police was ambitious, but the extra constables will be delivered and the target has driven improvements across the recruitment process, from marketing through to the creation of a new training facility in Auckland," she said.
"Two years ago, there wasn't a proper pipeline of applicants, with recruitment barely covering attrition rates. On top of that, to improve training standards, Police increased the length of training courses from 16 to 20 weeks soon after we became government so no wings graduated from February to May 2024. This meant that the number of Police actually declined until then."
Associate police minister and New Zealand First MP Casey Costello. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Treasury document showed Police also had a $7.915 million underspend in 2024-25, the majority of which came from the delays in meeting the target.
Of that, $5.537m was moved to the 2025-26 budget to keep meeting the costs of the target, with the remaining $2.378m moved to the overall Police pot.
Police had sought to address recruitment and attrition issues by reducing the time spent in the recruitment pipeline before training, with the overall timeline reducing from 20 months to 12.
Police had also increased training wing capacity from 80 to 100, including a new facility in Auckland.
"Police is unlikely to be able to speed up delivery of the target given it already appears to have taken measures to speed up recruitment," the document said.
Police had allowed for attrition at around 5.8 percent in its planning to meet the target - higher than the decade long average of 4.5 percent per year.
Attrition had peaked at around 5.9 percent in the 12 months to December 2024, and dipped to 5.4 percent in the 12 months to August 2025.
Police attributed that higher than usual attrition to an ageing workforce, and campaigns from Australia targeting New Zealand staff.
Costello said attrition rates had reduced below 5 percent, and there was a strong recruitment pipeline in place, with 80 recruits set to graduate in December.
Total graduate numbers in 2025 are expected to be between 750 and 770, compared to 617 in 2023 and 562 in 2024.
"Overall, Police will have brought in approximately 900 new constables - graduates through the Police College and re-joins - during 2025. This will be the most ever achieved in a year," Costello said.
Labour's police spokesperson Ginny Andersen. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Labour's police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said the government had "clearly failed" its promise, saying it had been pushed from November 2025 to June 2026, then August, and now September.
"It's always good to have as many recruits as possible, and it's great to have recruitment campaigns in place. But I think the problem is, if New Zealanders have been told that they're going to have 500 more police in place by the 27th of November, then there is a clear expectation that the government should deliver on that promise, and they've failed to do that."
Andersen said the Police Minister Mark Mitchell had known "from the get-go" that two years was going to be difficult.
"This has caused clear tensions in the coalition agreement, but the failure to deliver those extra police officers just puts more pressure on an already stretched front line."
Acting Deputy Commissioner Tusha Penny said as at 17 November, there were 313 recruits currently under training, and Police had 10,449 constable full-time equivalents.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
