The New Zealand Transport Agency has restored $18 million in road policing funding to police after determining that breath testing targets were met for the first three quarters of the 2025/26 financial year, even as Transport Minister Chris Bishop continues to wait for the independent report into the falsification of more than 30,000 tests.
The funding had been progressively frozen by NZTA from late last year, after RNZ revealed about 130 officers across the country were under investigation for falsely or erroneously recording around 30,000 alcohol breath tests. The agency had eventually withheld $12 million of the $24 million annual police breath testing allocation, with a further $6 million pulled in April this year, before deciding on Monday to release the held funds.
Each year, $24 million is paid to police from the National Land Transport Fund under the Road Policing Investment Programme. It is structured as delivery dependent funding, assessed quarterly, with $6 million available each quarter on the condition that speed and impairment activities meet agreed levels. NZTA’s decision to authorise the held quarters means police have now demonstrated, on the agency’s own metrics, that the post-scandal recovery is on track.
“Based on this a decision has been made to authorise the spending of the delivery dependent funding,” an NZTA spokesperson said on Monday, telling RNZ that the agency had confirmed police performance “met the required targets for the first three quarters of the 2025/26 financial year”.
Bishop has been more direct about the parallel issue, the still-unreleased independent analysis of breath testing data that NZTA commissioned in December to identify the full scale of the falsification. He said he was “frustrated” at the length of time the agency was taking to release the report. “I’ve told them to get on with it ASAP,” he told RNZ. NZTA expects to publish the findings in the coming weeks.
The independent analysis sits alongside the police’s internal investigation, and was set up specifically to identify whether further irregularities sat above and beyond what police had themselves detected. Weekly updates to Bishop, obtained earlier under the Official Information Act, showed NZTA identified a preferred supplier in late October last year for the work. The October update said the analysis would identify whether any further irregularities, over and above any detected by police, were discernible in the breath screening test data file.
A 13 October update to the minister revealed an awkward limitation. Police could not determine whether irregular testing had been undertaken when officers were stationary. Then Acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Johnson told NZTA that the algorithm in use had “proven effective” in detecting tests carried out while the breath testing device was in motion, but added that “there remains limitations in detecting all forms of irregular testing, including those undertaken in specific locations”. NZTA replied that it was “supporting and encouraging” police to look beyond current detection methods to ascertain “the true scale of irregularities”.
Acting Assistant Commissioner of road policing and district support Superintendent Steve Greally said resolving the issue had required “extensive analysis and reassurance work across police”. He said it had given the organisation an opportunity to “further strengthen our systems and reinforce the high standards expected of our people”. “There has been a considerable effort made by our dedicated road policing staff across police to provide assurance that our practices and data remain accurate and reliable. The independent finding in respect to the significant efforts of our frontline being legitimate is pleasing.”
Greally said the continued expectation of staff was that they “deliver road policing activities every day with utmost professionalism and a vigourous commitment to preventing harm on roads”.
The original revelations rocked the road policing operation. Last November, every officer in the country was ordered to complete mandatory online alcohol breath testing training following the discovery that more than 100 staff had been investigated over the falsifying of around 30,000 tests. Senior defence lawyer Barbara Buckett called the scale of the problem “unfathomable” at the time, telling RNZ the geographic spread and number of officers involved pointed to wider systemic failure rather than rogue individuals.
The motoring public also has questions over what the false records mean for prosecutions and dismissed cases that depended on breath test data. Police have not publicly indicated whether any historical convictions are at risk, and the independent report’s release is now expected to bring fresh scrutiny on that question.
For Bishop, the political incentive to push the report into public view is straightforward. The coalition has made road safety enforcement a visible priority, and a road policing budget that flows through delivery dependent funding only works if the public trusts the data behind the deliveries. Until the independent report lands, the question of how big the gap was between recorded tests and actual tests remains unanswered, leaving NZTA’s restoration of funding looking like a step forward without the broader integrity question being settled.
The wider concern is the precedent. Falsifying breath tests is a misconduct issue, but the NZTA mechanism that policed it, freezing money tied to delivery, is now likely to be used in other parts of the road policing relationship. Police met the metric this quarter, so the money flowed. The next time a metric slips, the same lever can be pulled. Whether ratepayers and motorists see that as accountability or as a distortion of how police prioritise their day will likely depend on whether the falsification report, when it does land, finds the problem was contained or systemic.
What do you think? Should NZTA have restored the full $18 million before the independent report on the falsifications was released, or was holding the money any longer punishing the wrong people? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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