Outgoing Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says he has been misunderstood at times during his tenure as the country’s top cop — adding that law and order policy is too complex to be distilled into “media-sized soundbites”.
In a wide-ranging Q+A interview ahead of his departure, the commissioner emphasised the need for a “balanced” approach — which he said he brought but hadn’t always resonated with everyone — and that there needed to be a “nuanced” debate over policing.
“I bring a very balanced approach to my role and to what we do inside of police,” he said.
Andrew Coster was interviewed by Q+A’s Jack Tame. (Source: 1News)
“I recognise the many responses, that I have spoken to, don’t necessarily resonate in terms of a simple view of policing, but often what we need is a simple response, and we bring it.”
He added: “Policing has to respond to the full spectrum of the problems that we face. Sometimes an enforcement response is exactly what’s required.
“People need to know that when they offend, a consequence will follow.
“At the same time, if you want to address the long-term problems in our community, things like youth offending and the disproportionate rate of that — things like family violence — then you have to be able to look at the underlying aspects of that.”
Coster will take up his new role from November 11. (Source: 1News)
Coster will take up a new job as chief executive of the Government’s Social Investment Agency, leaving police five months before he was due to finish his term.
Over his four-year time on the job, the commissioner had been on the receiving end of criticism that he didn’t do enough to crack down on crime. Former National leader Simon Bridges labelled him a “wokester”, while other critics derided him as “Cuddles Coster”.
Coalition Government parties, which ran on law and order issues during last year’s election campaign, have brought what they say has been a “tough on crime” approach instead.
Coster said he wasn’t shoulder-tapped for his new job at the Social Investment Agency, and that he applied for it after he decided not to to renew his term as commissioner.
Coster’s most important takeaway from commissioner job
One challenge in the public debate about policing was that crime was now more prominent than ever, Coster suggested, while “statistics surrounding crime don’t get” as much attention. He said it was his “most important” takeaway from being in the top job.
Kiwis’ perception of their personal safety has deteriorated since 2018, despite several measures of violent crime going down overall in that time.
Addressing the statistics, Coster said: “People are more fearful of crime than they’ve ever been, but the facts of crime don’t necessarily support that fear.
“We used to read about crime the next day in the newspaper. You might have had a photo of a crime scene, and that was about it.
Labour accused of cherry-picking figures by comparing foot patrols numbers in December to those in June. (Source: 1News)
“Today we see crimes in real-time, high-resolution video through social media. It’s very hard for us to recognise that one could be the same as the other, or less than the other.
“The statistics surrounding crime don’t get that much examination, in all honesty, and certainly not the full picture through a survey, as the one you’ve mentioned.
“It’s a challenge in our public discourse.”
Coster added: “You can be doing all of the right things to shift actual safety, but we do need to think about the way people are perceiving and receiving.”
Asked how he characterised the political discourse on law and order, Coster brought up growing political polarisation around the world. He added that the countries he believed were doing better than New Zealand were Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
In a press release, Police Minister Mark Mitchell said data showed a 22% reduction in serious assaults within the Auckland CBD between January 1 and July 31 when compared to the same period last year. (Source: 1News)
The Police Commissioner said there was “actually a lot of evidence about what works with crime”, but that “soundbites” on the issue didn’t cut it.
“There’s actually a lot of evidence about what works with crime. The challenge, potentially, is when we break crime down into media-sized sound bites, then we can miss the depth that can be there — if you look for what the evidence says about what works.”
Coster said the country needed to move the long-term “fundamentals that drive crime”.
“It’s a nuanced conversation that I believe would be helpful for us around criminal justice.”
Top cop ‘lost sleep’ over Parliament occupation
In reflecting on his time leading the police force, Coster has repeatedly said his proudest days were during the Wellington occupation.
In February 2022, hundreds of protesters took up position on the front lawns of Parliament, refusing to leave over opposition to vaccine mandates during the pandemic.
The Prime Minister said she was deeply saddened to see Parliament “desecrated” by the violence. (Source: 1News)
Police only forcibly evicted the encampment weeks after it had first begun, with criticism levelled at Coster for his handling of the situation. In reflection, he explained his comments on Q+A, adding that it was the one his time in the role that led to “losing a bit of sleep”.
“It’s probably the one time in my career where I lost a bit of sleep over how things were going. I’d wake up at 4am mind racing. That’s not much earlier than I normally wake up, but it was definitely a very pressurised situation,” he said.
“That’s where the independence of this role really comes to the fore because only the Police Commissioner will carry the responsibility for the way that situation is managed, and whether we get it right, or whether we get it wrong.”
He said: “The response that police brought, I believe, gave us the best opportunity as a community of moving forward and with a level of cohesion — for a couple of reasons.
“If we had charged in there at the start guns blazing, then we would still be managing the fallout of that in our communities today, in terms of the aggrieved people that it would have left and the way they would respond to that situation.
People were filmed removing bricks from the ground and tossing objects at police. (Source: 1News)
“Secondly, when we brought a response to resolve it with force, it was the most measured, professional, balanced approach that you would see anywhere in the world.
“That’s a credit to our people who did that. They only escalated where they needed to, and they brought about the safest resolution that could be achieved in that situation.
“I stand by the approach we took. The Independent Police Conduct Authority also supported the approach we took. Of course, the counterfactual we’ll never know.”
Coster added: “You’re very conscious of, not just the hundreds if not thousands of people who are there, but the sensitive things that surrounded that site.
“We had the Southern Hemisphere’s largest wooden building in the old government buildings. We had the Treaty of Waitangi. We had Parliament. We had ministers. We had our highest courts, all within those tight environs. There was lots to be to be mindful of.”
Andrew Coster says there is a “good opportunity” to de-escalate the protest and get to a place where it can be resolved without the need to bring large-scale violence. (Source: Q and A)
Coster told Q+A at the height of the occupation that his focus was on “de-escalation”.
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
