ANDREW COSTER – NEW COMMISSIONER OF POLICE – NEW HOPE FOR POLICING IN NZ

ANDREW COSTER – NEW COMMISSIONER OF POLICE – NEW HOPE FOR THE “UNDERCLASS” 

[Excerpts and photo from  NZ Herald of 7 April, 2020 from article by Elizabeth Easther, My Story, as told by Andrew to Esther]

I normally do not copy and paste articles for my blog. However, when I read the views of our new Commissioner of Police, I was impressed. He seemed to have empathy for the underclass people who have high statistics in crime.

As most of my readers do not subscribe to NZ Herald, they would miss out on his very brilliant, frank and welcome views. Hence I decided to present extracts in this article.

It gave me hope that a young, family man of higher decile, having such a soft spot for South Auckland is a good and bright ray of hope for policing in New Zealand.

Newly appointed Commissioner of Police Andrew Coster has been with the force since 1997 and is now responsible for close to 14,000 staff nationwide. His police career has seen him serve in front line and investigative roles in Counties Manukau, Auckland and Dunedin. To set an example to staff, his beard came off this weekend. Here is as he spoke to Elizabeth Easther of NZ Herald.

New Commisioner of Police ANDREW COSTER, who has shaved his beard in solidarity with those at the front line of Covid-19. Earlier, he had made a request to frontline police officers to shave-off their facial hair in response health regulation of the virus. [Photo: NZ Herald]

“I didn't know what I wanted to do when I finished school so I went into the workforce rather than tertiary education. I was a sales consultant for Blue Star selling business telephone systems. I was doing very well, but I got to a point where I felt intensely dissatisfied and, within about two and a half months I was at Police College in Porirua. 

I'd never aspired to join the police but at age 20 I felt a strong sense of a calling, a drive to perform a public service, to make a difference.

I had a privileged upbringing and, within a couple of weeks of graduating from Police College, I was stationed at Mangere. Seeing the way some people lived was an incredible eye-opener and, at times, very depressing. I was 21 and my life experiences hadn't shown me that side of life but, in a quick space of time, I saw how desperate the need was in those communities.

I also learned that the police often see the worst parts of people's lives, the times when they're really struggling, and that's why good policing is vital, to ensure that justice is available to all and people can access the help they need to be safe.

I started with the police before I had children. I now have three boys, and I think I'd find it much harder now to deal with some of the scenes I saw as a detective. Because our people do really tough work, it's important that we, as an organisation, support each other and provide safe places for staff to express what they're going through.

The other side to that, it's easy to become quite hard and it can be difficult to have the most appropriate response if you just look at a snapshot of a person's life, victim or offender, and possibly lose sight of the context of where that person is. When people offend, they're not at their best, so as police we need to take a wider view, then work with our partners to offer appropriate interventions……………………………”

“There's a sense of deliberate and purposeful calm around the way we're policing in this Covid situation. More than ever we are dependent on New Zealanders believing the police is going about this the right way, in light of what we're facing. The vast majority needs to buy into the controls being put in place by public health officials for us to be successful. It's a fine balance, but nearly all policing is reliant on community buy-in.

The key message during Level 4 is that we're in this together and we have a window to beat this thing. Our ability to deal with this virus will be due to all of us doing the right thing. Police will do our best to help people do that in a way that enables them to enjoy the maximum realistic freedoms during this time. We don't want to be heavy-handed, but when we need to, we'll deal with people who aren't doing the right thing, that way we can beat this rather than find ourselves dealing with a worse situation if it spreads more widely.

Our bubble is me, my wife and our three boys who are 15, 13 and 10. My family make a big sacrifice to let me go and I'm really blessed they're so supportive and see the importance of my job. Being recognised, I don't know what that will look like. It's not always easy for teenagers to have their dad in a high profile position, but the kids have great characters and I know they'll look out for each other.

With my focus on work and family over the next five years, my hobbies will be secondary. I do enjoy motorcycling and hopefully I'll get my motorcycle to the racetrack now and then. I enjoy sports and I try to go to gym, when I can go, to keep my body and brain active. I've been in busy jobs for a long time, so it's not a new thing yet, with each one, there's a new layer of expectation, but I am very privileged to serve in this role.”

[New NZ Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster’s story as told to NZ Herald’s Elizabeth Easther]