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