Fleet of 'police buses' rolled out in Auckland to drive recruitment
A fleet of "police buses" has rolled out across Auckland to drive recruitment into the force.
The five Auckland Transport buses, wrapped in police livery, were set to be a mobile billboard for police as they continued driving their routes around the city.
The buses were covered in the New Zealand Police's famous blue, yellow, and white, with "Next Stop: Making a Difference" written on the side.
Commissioner Richard Chambers said the campaign was part of police efforts to recruit its target of 500 new officers.
The buses will be around the city over the next 12 weeks. (Source: Supplied)
ADVERTISEMENT
"These newly decorated double-decker buses seat 500 people, which is exactly the number we want to recruit."
He said Auckland had always been a key recruitment area for police, and was "keen to be highly visible and advertise far and wide".
Winter's here, supermarket spying, and TikTok's new feature. (Source: 1News)
"We know that the buses are ideal for reaching the whole of the city."
The total cost to wrap the buses was $119,800, which included print, installation, and 12 weeks of media advertising.
The redecorated buses were introduced just a month from the new police training campus in Albany on Auckland's North Shore, welcoming its first batch of recruits.
"The new Auckland training campus at Albany will also help make a career with the police a reality for those who cannot relocate to Wellington for the full 20-week course," Chambers said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The new buses were part of a drive to recruit 500 news officers. (Source: Supplied)
"That campus is set to welcome its first intake from the start of July. That is a significant development in our recruitment and training."
Under the National-NZ First coalition agreement, the Government set a target of recruiting an extra 500 officers within its first two years in office.
However, the recruitment drive has struggled to meet expectations, and the Government conceded last month it would likely miss the November target.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
an hour ago
- Scoop
The House: Parliamentary Week Achieves Two Out Of Three Goals
, Editor: The House While Parliament's week was dominated by its final event - Thursday's debate on the report from the Privileges Committee into a haka performed in the chamber - the rest of the week focussed on other business that, while more mundane, was still worthy of note. The Government appeared to have three objectives for this week in the house. Crucial to the administration's continuance, the first goal was to successfully complete the initial debate on the budget. The long initial budget debate could no longer dribble on over weeks, so the house spent six hours of the week completing the second reading debate, which is the first debate a budget gets. The reading was accomplished and so the Government continues. This may sound silly, but a Government cannot survive, if the house votes against its budget. Agreeing to vote for budget and taxation bills are the 'supply' portion of the 'confidence and supply' agreement that is the foundation of any coalition agreement. The budget focus now turns to select committees and what is called 'Scrutiny Week', when ministers appear before various subject committees to defend their budget plans. Scrutiny Week begins on 16 June. Slow seconds A second objective was possibly not in earlier plans for this week - to finally polish off the bills originally slated for completion two weeks ago during budget week urgency. Then, the Leader of the House had asked the house to accord urgency for 12 bills the Government hoped to progress through 30 stages of parliamentary debate. The plan was ambitious and it did not succeed. Despite day-long sittings until midnight Saturday (when urgency must end), only two bills were completed, others were untouched, and 13 stages were unfinished or unstarted. This week's plan for the house had MPs returning to the well for more of the same. Just like last time, progress was at a snail's pace. After quite a few hours, the Government had slugged its way through just a few more stages. The plan was slowed to a crawl by bills' committee stages (formally known as the Committee of the Whole House). Committee stages are a crucial way for MPs to publicly interrogate the minister in charge of a bill. With patience, they can tease out a lot about both a government's development of legislation and its intended real-world impacts. Because the committee stage has no set duration, it is also a way for the opposition to make the Government really work for progress. The Government did achieve progress on the bills left incomplete from budget week, but again, it was probably not what was hoped for. They will need to come back yet again in three weeks to have a third crack. The Opposition is showing itself to be quite effective at the filibuster. The Government's third objective was to have the debate on the recent Privileges Committee Report on three Te Pāti Māori MPs done by the week's end. As Leader of the House Chris Bishop said in re-initiating the debate: "My encouragement would be for everybody to finish this debate today. "Have a robust debate, but let's end this issue once and for all, and deal with the issue and get back to the major issues facing this country." That wish was fulfilled with apparent agreement from across the house. As 6pm neared, the MP who eventually moved that a vote be taken was Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi. The frankly fascinating debate on the report will be reported separately. - RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ.
NZ Herald
4 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Recipe: Red curry dumpling soup
If you've ever ventured onto TikTok, you've probably seen a version of this recipe. Comforting, flavourful, and super-quick, it's an easy one to amp up with extra vegetables to put your own twist on it. Red curry dumpling soup Serves 4 Ingredients 2 Tbsp red curry paste
Techday NZ
4 hours ago
- Techday NZ
US-China chip export debate highlights risks for AI leadership
DeepSeek. TikTok. Taiwan. And a White House shake-up on AI rules. The spiralling US-China technology rivalry landed at the heart of Johns Hopkins University last week, as a panel of top experts and policymakers took to the stage to debate whether restricting exports of advanced semiconductors to China can help the US maintain its edge in the race for artificial intelligence. The discussion, hosted by Open to Debate in partnership with the SNF Agora Institute, comes at a critical time. In Washington, the Trump administration has announced plans to roll back the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule and introduce new chip export controls targeting China – a move seen by many as a signal that the technology contest between the two superpowers is only intensifying. On one side of the Johns Hopkins debate were Lindsay Gorman, managing director at the German Marshall Fund's Technology Program, and former CIA officer and congressman Will Hurd. They argued the answer is yes: semiconductor controls can give the US a real advantage in the AI race. Gorman pointed to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI model whose CEO has publicly lamented the impact of advanced chip bans. "Money has never been the problem for us. Bans on shipments of advanced chips are the problem. And they have to consume twice the power to achieve the same results," she quoted, highlighting how China's AI advances still depend heavily on imported hardware. "The United States has significant hard computing power advantages – the ability to produce high-end chips, designed specifically for training AI models," Gorman told the audience. She argued that, together with its allies, the US controls a "strategic choke point" on computing power. "Properly implemented controls can have an effect and also have an increasing and compounding effect over time in retarding China's AI advantages and giving the United States a head start," she explained. Will Hurd, who also served on OpenAI's board before running for US president, compared the AI contest to the nuclear arms race. "Artificial intelligence is the equivalent of nuclear fission. Nuclear fission controlled gives you nuclear power… uncontrolled, nuclear weapons can kill everybody," he said. Hurd emphasised the importance of first-mover advantage, warning that the US cannot afford to lose its technological lead. He also highlighted a lack of reciprocity in the tech relationship between the two countries. "Chinese companies like Baidu, DJI, and TikTok operate freely in the US, but American companies are not allowed to operate in China," Hurd pointed out. "If there was a level of reciprocity between our two countries, we wouldn't be here having this debate about chip controls." Yet, on the opposing side, former senior US diplomat Susan Thornton and technology strategist Paul Triolo insisted the US could not outpace China in AI simply by tightening export controls. Triolo argued that the controls are "not working and will not lead to US dominance in AI", describing them as a blunt instrument that creates confusion for industry and disrupts global supply chains. "Most experts believe that Chinese companies are only three months behind US leaders in developing advanced AI models," Triolo said, suggesting any technological gap is vanishingly slim. Thornton, who spent decades at the heart of US-China diplomacy, warned of unintended consequences. "The main thing we should be asking ourselves about this question… is what is the cost benefit of US policy actions?" she said. "We have to face the reality that China is already building AI… a third of the world's top AI scientists are Chinese. China is one third of the entire global technology market. So it's clearly a player." She cautioned that blocking China from critical technology could backfire, hurting US companies, alienating allies and raising the risks around Taiwan, the global centre of advanced chip manufacturing. "Certainly, the one thing we need to do is avoid going to war," Thornton warned. "Taiwan, the most sensitive issue in US-China relations, has now been dragged right into the middle of this AI issue because they're the place that produces all the cutting-edge chips that we're trying to control." Audience members pressed the panel on whether international collaboration on AI safety was possible, and whether the US could ever match China's data advantage, given the size of the Chinese population and its permissive data environment. Hurd conceded that "the US will always have less data because we have a little thing called civil liberties," but argued that superior algorithms and privacy-protective machine learning could level the playing field. For Triolo, the dynamic nature of the technology means that attempts to wall off China are self-defeating. "There are many ways to get to different ends. The controls have forced Chinese companies to work together, develop innovations, and become more competitive both domestically and globally," he said. Gorman, in closing, rejected what she called "a defeatism that says America can't out-compete China or slow its progress". "Our companies are doing well. There isn't an issue here with demand, it's with supply. Doing better means that we have to throw what we can at this problem now with a smart application of tools," she argued. But Thornton had the last word, urging caution. "Making the AI competition with China a zero-sum game, not only will not work, it is dangerous," she said. "We should focus on the things that are going to matter to our children and their children, which is the long-term AI competition, which if not constrained and bounded by international agreements and by cooperation among countries… it'll be a very dangerous world."
