Speaker 1: Kyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Susan Nordquist and for Chelsea Daniels and this is
Speaker 2: the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New
Speaker 2: Zealand Herald. Police Commissioner Andrew cost announced this week he
Speaker 2: is ending his term early to take up a new
Speaker 2: role as the head of the Social Investment Agency at
Speaker 2: the end of the year. Costa was the face of
Speaker 2: the previous government's pushed to police by Consent and he
Speaker 2: copped a huge amount of criticism from National when they
Speaker 2: were in opposition. The race is now on to replace Costa,
Speaker 2: So who will National pick and what will that decision
Speaker 2: say about their approach to tackling law and order. Today
Speaker 2: on the Front Page, New Zealand Herald, investigative reporter Jared
Speaker 2: Savage shares his insights into Costa's tenure and how the
Speaker 2: government might change tack How would you do describe Andrew
Speaker 2: Cost's time as police commissioner. It did seem quite rocky
Speaker 2: at times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the answer to that's quite complicated because I
Speaker 3: think the role of police commissioner has become politicized somewhat
Speaker 3: during the time that Andrew Costa has been in charge.
Speaker 3: He came in under the previous Labor government with the
Speaker 3: big strategic vision on basically leaning the police forward into
Speaker 3: the new generation of policing a lot more sort of inclusive,
Speaker 3: the idea of the police being a part of the
Speaker 3: community and using the least force possible. And you know,
Speaker 3: that strategic vision really impressed the government at the time
Speaker 3: and kind of aligned with the more progressive policies of
Speaker 3: the Labor government. But he came in a very difficult
Speaker 3: time too. His first to have the job was the
Speaker 3: COVID lockdown, and all of a sudden, the police are
Speaker 3: having to deal with accusations of living in a police state.
Speaker 1: We couldn't go out, we can't visit people.
Speaker 3: You know, we can travel outside of Auckland, and you know,
Speaker 3: that time period became quite polarizing. When we came out
Speaker 3: of that time, you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 3: gangshunings and a lot of a bit of violence. There
Speaker 3: was ram raids, and that became this kind of narrative
Speaker 3: of the Labor government being soft on crime, and he
Speaker 3: got dragged into that debate and sort of became criticized
Speaker 3: quite openly by national You know, he was called a
Speaker 3: wokester by Simon Bridges, who was the previous National leader,
Speaker 3: you know, Mark Mitchell, who's the current Police Minister, when
Speaker 3: he was in opposition, was getting stuck in as well.
Speaker 3: And I think when National came into power late last
Speaker 3: year sort of the writing was on the wall for
Speaker 3: Andrew Costa as the commissioner. I think that they've put
Speaker 3: on sort of quite good appearances this year in terms of,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to work together and be on the
Speaker 3: same page. But I really do think National been wanting
Speaker 3: to bring in their own police commissioner, someone who can
Speaker 3: implement the policies that they want to see rolled out
Speaker 3: across the country, starting with the gang legislation.
Speaker 1: You know, this.
Speaker 3: Announcement yesterday of Andrew Costa is starting a new role
Speaker 3: is sort of a win win for the Game government
Speaker 3: because they can retain his talents as the head of
Speaker 3: the Social Investment Agency, which he will be really good at,
Speaker 3: and at the same time they can bring in a
Speaker 3: new police commissioner, their man or woman in charge to
Speaker 3: roll out these changes that they want to see happen.
Speaker 4: My role has been very much defined by COVID. I
Speaker 4: started three days into the first COVID lockdown. The proudest
Speaker 4: day of my career was the day that we cleared
Speaker 4: the grounds to Parliament. The police certainly had to deal
Speaker 4: with the huge polarization that COVID course in our communities,
Speaker 4: and to some extent we still see the effects of that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I care about my reputation and I let my actions
Speaker 4: speak for themselves.
Speaker 2: Do you think COVID, in the fallout from that then
Speaker 2: played into how he was treated and that how he
Speaker 2: was treated was essentially out of his hands.
Speaker 1: Well, I think so.
Speaker 3: I think once you get dragged into that political debate,
Speaker 3: people can start chucking around unkind nicknames and comments and
Speaker 3: like that, and those big jobs, you can't please everybody
Speaker 3: all the time. And I think we've had a really
Speaker 3: testing period in the last sort of five years in
Speaker 3: which the big vision that he had for the police,
Speaker 3: where you've still got to deal with day to day
Speaker 3: policing and it's hard to make strategic change when you've
Speaker 3: got big problems that you have to deal with every
Speaker 3: single day. COVID was a massive test of police sort
Speaker 3: of operational abilities in some ways, I think it was
Speaker 3: difficult for him to get going from the start. Police
Speaker 3: became very sort of distrusted during that time as well,
Speaker 3: and the government became distrusted, the media became distrusted. So
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, you've got quite a polarized population
Speaker 3: and people start chucking sort of labels around which simplify
Speaker 3: things down and you know, black as white, white as black,
Speaker 3: and the reality is is that it sort of shades
Speaker 3: of gray. So his legacy will be quite a complicated one.
Speaker 3: To one pick. I think he's been treated quite harshly
Speaker 3: at times. However, I think history will probably judge.
Speaker 1: Him a bit more kindly.
Speaker 3: There's always a disconnect between police National headqu is based
Speaker 3: in Wellington in the front line. It's the same it's
Speaker 3: with any organization, right the people doing the work at
Speaker 3: the bottom end of the chain. There's always a bit
Speaker 3: of suspicion of the bosses and the matter where you go.
Speaker 3: I think that did grow a little bit under Coster's leadership.
Speaker 1: I mean, you police were really.
Speaker 3: Stressed out after COVID and they're running into big issues
Speaker 3: where the police became stretched quite thin across doing a
Speaker 3: lot of work, some of it which kind of isn't
Speaker 3: really police work. And I think Coster's big vision for
Speaker 3: the police didn't necessarily translate that.
Speaker 1: Well to the front line and I think there was
Speaker 1: a wee bit of a disconnect there.
Speaker 3: You know, previous police commissioners Mike Bush Peter Marshall, for example,
Speaker 3: were quite good at traveling around the country and it's
Speaker 3: quite at ease talking with the troops and you know,
Speaker 3: kind of just showing their face here and there and
Speaker 3: shaking a few hands and for all as many strengths,
Speaker 3: I don't think that was one of one of costers.
Speaker 3: And I think that meant that his sort of vision
Speaker 3: to change the police, you know, in a generational kind
Speaker 3: of aspect going forward, didn't translate that well, particularly when
Speaker 3: staff were you know, really stretched quite dealing with a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of problems.
Speaker 2: Would it be fair to say then he was an
Speaker 2: easy target, especially with the opposition in mind. And was
Speaker 2: that criticism of him from the opposition of the day warranted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he did become a bit of an
Speaker 1: easy target.
Speaker 3: But I do think some of the criticism, you know,
Speaker 3: these are issues that need to be ventilated. You can't
Speaker 3: not criticize people when he was the face of the
Speaker 3: police and he needed to answer these kinds of tough
Speaker 3: questions around what was happening at the time. But it's
Speaker 3: a role that has become politicized. Some of the attacks
Speaker 3: were probably quite personal in nature, you know. I read
Speaker 3: an interview with him which he was talking about the
Speaker 3: debate between a tough on crime and soft on crime,
Speaker 3: and he said, well, we try to be smart on crime,
Speaker 3: but I think at times that sort of big picture
Speaker 3: strategic thinking didn't marry up with potentially what was needed
Speaker 3: right then.
Speaker 1: And there, the reality of policing happening that day. They
Speaker 1: didn't handle it at all.
Speaker 2: And Costa must take get shoulder of the blame for
Speaker 2: the protest.
Speaker 1: He wants to be nuanced, he wants to be woke.
Speaker 1: Now he's done a really good job. You might want
Speaker 1: to be a little at with those sort of questions.
Speaker 1: But the pointer says, this is here. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: Simon Bridges. If you have noticed.
Speaker 2: Cost has publicly said it was difficult to do his
Speaker 2: job at times. Do you think he will be glad
Speaker 2: to see the back of this job.
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to ask him that. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like any big job, right, Like.
Speaker 3: It's pretty stressful at times. I think it would be
Speaker 3: quite lonely at the top sometimes. And so I think
Speaker 3: he said he had mixed emotions about taking.
Speaker 1: On the new job.
Speaker 3: I think there would have been things that he would
Speaker 3: have liked to have seen done in the police. I mean,
Speaker 3: under a different government, he may have even been appointed
Speaker 3: for another term.
Speaker 1: He's only very young. He was the youngest police.
Speaker 3: Commissioner we've had at forty four, which means he's only
Speaker 3: forty eight or forty nine now. He easily could have
Speaker 3: done another term of three to five years. I guess
Speaker 3: he probably feels like some of the public common around
Speaker 3: his role might be unfairly coin of.
Speaker 1: Tainting his time in the police.
Speaker 3: The new job that he's going to have at the
Speaker 3: Social Investment Agency, I mean, yeah, he's clearly been moved
Speaker 3: sideways here, but it is a very important role under.
Speaker 1: This national government.
Speaker 3: They have put a lot of sort of political capital
Speaker 3: into bringing through this idea of social investment, basically using
Speaker 3: all the data that the various government agencies have to
Speaker 3: sort of target the right people with the right interventions
Speaker 3: to break the cycle of poverty. It's right up his alley.
Speaker 3: He's got a big brain for policy. He'll do very
Speaker 3: well in it. And so that light ahead about having
Speaker 3: mixed emotions. I can understand why, because you know, the
Speaker 3: Police is probably the most scrutinized government department in the country.
Speaker 3: The amount of media requests and OaaS and things that
Speaker 3: come through is enormous, and so he might enjoy sort
Speaker 3: of having relatively bit more anonymity in his new role.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: It's interesting what the government has said about him now.
Speaker 2: Chris Luxen has said he's done a really good job.
Speaker 2: Police Minister. Mark Mitchell, though initially refined, fuse to express
Speaker 2: his confidence in cost when National won the election. Is
Speaker 2: the fact that Costa chose not to seek a second
Speaker 2: term as Commissioner and has now left early perhaps not
Speaker 2: a surprise.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a surprise at all.
Speaker 3: I think some of the criticism when National were in opposition,
Speaker 3: you know, the views that they publicly made at that
Speaker 3: time were wonder that they hold when they came into
Speaker 3: power as well. I think on a personal level, I
Speaker 3: think they get on fine. Between Mark Mitchell and Andrew Costa.
Speaker 1: I think it's a.
Speaker 3: Cordial and respectful relationship, but they're definitely not on the
Speaker 3: same page philosophically around policing.
Speaker 1: And so Andrew coss is a very smart guy.
Speaker 3: He would have right hard to work for the new
Speaker 3: government and to implement how they want to see law
Speaker 3: and order police in this country as opposed to how
Speaker 3: the previous government did. But I think it was always
Speaker 3: going to be difficult, a difficult and sort of awkward
Speaker 3: marriage of inconvenience. They put on appearances publicly, but I
Speaker 3: don't yeah, I think they were kind of like oil
Speaker 3: and water.
Speaker 2: Mitchildren eventually lay out a set of expectations for Costa.
Speaker 2: Was Costa essentially being asked to do what he was
Speaker 2: told and if so, is that a fair expectation to
Speaker 2: have of a police commissioner.
Speaker 3: That was around the time when Mitchell come into the job.
Speaker 3: He was slow to express confidence in cost and took
Speaker 3: that quite unusual step of laying out what national expected
Speaker 3: of the police.
Speaker 1: Now, the police commissioner is statutorily.
Speaker 3: Independent of the government, so it would take a very
Speaker 3: good reason for the government to be out of sack
Speaker 3: a police commissioner, you know, and that independence is there
Speaker 3: for a good reason, you know. For example, dictatorships don't
Speaker 3: have that separation of powers. And so, if anything, it
Speaker 3: was just to put public pressure on Andrew Coster and
Speaker 3: the Police executive to sort of, well, this is what
Speaker 3: we want to see happened and it's up to you
Speaker 3: guys to achieve that. And you know, I think that
Speaker 3: was more done for political or public sort of media
Speaker 3: reasons as opposed to Mitchell actually been a tell cost
Speaker 3: of what to do because operationally they can't. Those are
Speaker 3: sort of the conversations which happened mind closed doors previously.
Speaker 3: So putting it out there in the public was definitely
Speaker 3: done to sort of draw a bit of a line
Speaker 3: in the sand and see whether or not the police
Speaker 3: executive would respond to those sort of expectations that were
Speaker 3: set out.
Speaker 2: Was the government meddling more than it should have?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: Oh well, I think governments always kind of meddle with
Speaker 3: the police. It is supposed to be separate, but of course,
Speaker 3: like crime and law in order of something that affects
Speaker 3: the public and voters, and so you know, if crime
Speaker 3: rates are going up, or if people are feeling it,
Speaker 3: even just feeling the perception of feeling unsafe.
Speaker 1: I think governments of all colors, going.
Speaker 3: Back as far as they can remember, have always had
Speaker 3: set out their expectations to the police of what they
Speaker 3: want prioritized. But I think the difference here is that
Speaker 3: that's often done behind closed doors. And this was done
Speaker 3: in a very sort of public way. So I think
Speaker 3: that's the difference here.
Speaker 2: You mentioned cost Is moving on to a new public
Speaker 2: service role as head of the Social Investment Agency. He
Speaker 2: said that he'd been kind of moved sideways to this role.
Speaker 2: Do you think the government wanted to move him on early?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 3: I think it's an elegant solution to a problem in
Speaker 3: which National wanted to have a new commissioner into sort
Speaker 3: of more aligned with them philosophically, to sort of drive
Speaker 3: forward their sort of anti ganging legislation coming in November.
Speaker 3: The timing is not coincidental that Andy Costa's term with
Speaker 3: the Police will finish in November.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much when the gang legislation comes into power.
Speaker 3: I'm sure when he announced that he would not be
Speaker 3: seeking a second term back in July, I think that
Speaker 3: probably opened the door for him to be chapped on
Speaker 3: the shoulder and to say, hey, look, we've got this
Speaker 3: opportunity coming up.
Speaker 1: We think he'd be really good at it.
Speaker 3: And I know that the Finance Minister, Nikola Willis, is
Speaker 3: delighted to have someone of his caliber doing that. And equally,
Speaker 3: I think Mark Mitchell's delighted that he can appoint something
Speaker 3: that he wants into the police job as well.
Speaker 1: So it's a win win for National. I think.
Speaker 2: Mark you. Laura order part see what she released during
Speaker 2: the election said the National will scrape labors policing by
Speaker 2: consent philosophy, which has been a failure.
Speaker 3: No, we never said that we were scrapping any policing
Speaker 3: boy consent.
Speaker 1: My viewers always been policing boy.
Speaker 4: Consent as maintaining public confidence and showing them police are
Speaker 4: there when the public put their hand up for help.
Speaker 1: They're able to respond. You police by the consent of
Speaker 1: the public that you serve.
Speaker 2: Speaking to that new person who moves into this role,
Speaker 2: there are two contenders to replace Caster. Who are they
Speaker 2: and what should we know about them?
Speaker 1: So Depdy Commissioner Jevin mcskimming and Assistant Commissioner Richard Chambers
Speaker 1: are the two kind of front runners.
Speaker 3: Now, there will probably be some dark horses who throw
Speaker 3: their head in the ring from the sidelines, but from
Speaker 3: what I understand, both of these senior officers will put
Speaker 3: their name forward. Vin mcskimming has had a slightly different
Speaker 3: kind of career path in the police.
Speaker 1: He with sort of a front RNE roll for about
Speaker 1: ten years and then he's been in.
Speaker 3: Police National Headquarters since then doing a range of roles
Speaker 3: more sort of the big picture strategy sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: So he was in charge of the role out of
Speaker 3: mobile devices to police ten or twelve years ago now,
Speaker 3: which sort of revolutionized the technology side of it. He's
Speaker 3: been in charge of the property portfolios and involved in
Speaker 3: them in the quite high level kind of stuff in
Speaker 3: regards to the pay around negotiations and things like that,
Speaker 3: so sort of quite rated quite highly around his intelligence
Speaker 3: and his commercial now and he was someone that was
Speaker 3: brought through by Andrew Costa. The other contender is Assistant
Speaker 3: Commissioner Richard Chambers, who's had a more sort of traditional
Speaker 3: path in the police frontline sort of detected roles in
Speaker 3: Auckland and Wellington and then sort of progressing through the
Speaker 3: various management sort of area commander, district commander in tasmand
Speaker 3: of Nowson area and then up in Auckland, and for
Speaker 3: about the last eight or so years he's been in
Speaker 3: Police National Headquarters and in an assistant commissioner role, so
Speaker 3: he was in charge of sort of organized crime and
Speaker 3: serious investigations and then overseeing some of them police districts
Speaker 3: in the upper half of the North Island and currently
Speaker 3: with Interpow where he's actually taken a eccondment out of
Speaker 3: New Zealand to sort of work within DEPOL, which is
Speaker 3: the global network of police agencies in a sort of
Speaker 3: director of organized crime. So he's probably seen as a
Speaker 3: bit more of a frontline kind of operational guy than
Speaker 3: GMICS skimming.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see where the.
Speaker 3: Government lands without appointment, which will probably be made sometime
Speaker 3: in the next set of a couple of months.
Speaker 2: Given what national might be looking for in a new
Speaker 2: police commissioner, who is your.
Speaker 3: Pick, I would say that they would be leading towards
Speaker 3: Richard Chambers as the lead contender for that job for
Speaker 3: those reasons, because he's seen as more operational than GENMIC Skimming,
Speaker 3: and also amongst the frontline's probably more of a familiar
Speaker 3: face to them. So I guess it'll come again down
Speaker 3: to how well people interview as well, and the bigger
Speaker 3: picture of.
Speaker 1: The leadership and the strategic sort of direction.
Speaker 3: That both candidates and others who might put they're heading
Speaker 3: the rank that could change people's thinking as well. But
Speaker 3: right now I would say that Chambers would be the
Speaker 3: government's favorite.
Speaker 2: Jared just finally, what can the public expect from policing
Speaker 2: in this country in the future.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see, and that's a bit
Speaker 1: of a cliche, but a bit of a.
Speaker 3: Back to basics kind of approach from policing, concentrating on
Speaker 3: that stuff which the public expect, which is probably a
Speaker 3: visible presence from the police. That's what the government has
Speaker 3: basically said that that's what they want to see, and
Speaker 3: cracking down pretty hard on gangs. I think that's going
Speaker 3: to be quite a focus in the next sort of
Speaker 3: six twelve, eighteen months. Who knows whether or not that's
Speaker 3: going to be successful or not. We're going to have
Speaker 3: to wait and see what happens there. I'll just sort
Speaker 3: of put bit of context and then those it's all
Speaker 3: very well to say we're going to put more police
Speaker 3: on the beat and we see numbers that can be
Speaker 3: argued either way. I think there's going to be a
Speaker 3: bit of work to do to restore the morale of
Speaker 3: the frontline police. I think they've feel pretty stepped on
Speaker 3: and trodden on and kind of under attack. We have
Speaker 3: seen people leaving for Australia or leaving the police, and
Speaker 3: I think there's a bit of work to be done
Speaker 3: to sort of restoring morale there. I think there'll be
Speaker 3: a key priority for whoever is the next Commissioner of Police.
Speaker 2: Jared, thanks for your time. That's it for this episode
Speaker 2: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at Inset Herald dot co
Speaker 2: dot enzt. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills.
Speaker 2: Patty Fox is a sound engineer. I'm Susie Norquist. Subscribe
Speaker 2: to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind
Speaker 2: the headlines.