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Published: Dec. 6, 2023, 7:21 p.m.

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\'He\'s the man that\'s there\': Police union boss coy on Coster\'s suitability

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-Jamie Lyth, NZ Herald

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As the new Government makes its expectations for Police clear, the performance of Commissioner Andrew Coster has come into question - with the Police Association describing him as \\u201cthe man that\\u2019s there\\u201d.\\xa0

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Last night, National\\u2019s new Police Minister Mark Mitchell\\xa0publicly released a letter of expectations he had agreed to with Coster.\\xa0

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The letter sets out National\\u2019s key policies, including those in its first 100 days plan, including gang patch bans and law changes to give police more search powers and stop gang members associating with each other.\\xa0

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Mitchell said earlier today that he has\\xa0full confidence in Coster, despite his past criticism.\\xa0

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But Police Association President Chris Cahill did not give such an endorsement when asked by Newstalk ZB\\u2019s Mike Hosking whether Coster was still \\u201cthe man for the job\\u201d.\\xa0

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Cahill responded with: \\u201cWell he\\u2019s the man that\\u2019s there and we\\u2019ve got to move on.\\u201d\\xa0

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Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Commissioner of Police Andrew Coster. Photo / Alex Burton\\xa0

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On the letter itself and the expectations from the new minister, Cahill said he expected mostly positive reactions from ground-level staff.\\xa0

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\\u201cI think most frontline cops will be on board with the reset in focus.\\xa0

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\\u201cI think they\\u2019ll be very enthusiastic, it\\u2019s pretty clear now what they want is to get out there and put some pressure on criminals and put some pressure on crime.\\u201d\\xa0

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Cahill said the letter showed police were being asked to work less in the prevention area, and more in direct response.\\xa0

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\\u201cI think you can\\u2019t say that Andrew Coster didn\\u2019t have ideas around the prevention space and long-term changes.\\xa0

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\\u201cWhat he\\u2019s been told now is that he\\u2019s got to focus on the here and now, so I think it\\u2019s pretty clear in that letter of expectation that that\\u2019s what he\\u2019s got to focus on.\\u201d\\xa0

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Cahill said the ideas in the letter were good in theory but police need more resources to achieve the goals set out.\\xa0

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\\u201cThe challenge, of course, is who is going to do all of this if we\\u2019re losing cops to Australia.\\u201d\\xa0

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Hosking mentioned that the coalition deal promised 500 more police officers, but Cahill said he wasn\\u2019t sure what this would look like in reality.\\xa0

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\\u201cWe\\u2019d like to see that word extra, rather than just new.\\xa0

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\\u201cWe already get 450 new [officers] a year, so that needs to be clarified that it\\u2019s extra, not just new.\\u201d\\xa0

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Cahill said police need government organisations to do their job in the\\xa0crime prevention area so police can focus on responding to crime.\\xa0

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\\u201cI want to see the letter of expectations going to the CEO of Health [NZ], the CEO of Oranga Tamariki because they\\u2019ve got to step in and do their job because it can\\u2019t just be police.\\u201d\\xa0

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