Police presence a hit at festival

The police presence at the recent Te Matatini Festival in Palmerston North was a hit with the crowd.


The biennial national event showcases the 'best of the best' in waiata, haka, and poi and culminates in the coveted kapa haka competition. This year's event was held over four days from 24-27 February 2005. An estimated 50,000 people attended.

Police National Maori Strategic Advisor, OoC, Inspector Wally Haumaha says the police presence was a success for all the right reasons. Their attendance at the festival had a positive impact on the Mäori community's perception of police and policing as a career. Wally says Te Matatini was the ideal venue to recruit Mäori.

"More than fifty recruit applications were processed over the four days and no doubt the seed sown in the minds of many others."

But that's not all. Wally believes the police team's presence at the festival demonstrated the importance of engaging with communities face-to-face.

"There's no doubt our public relations profile, and community status is enhanced as a result. Mäori are always pleased to see Mäori police officers in uniform at these events."

Wally says people ask him why Te Matatini was the perfect event to increase recruitment levels and promote a positive image of the police among the Mäori community.

"The answer is ... while more than sixty percent of our 'clients' are Mäori, only ten percent of police themselves are Mäori. We need to work proactively to increase our numbers so we can work more effectively in our Mäori community.

"It was also great to look around the huge assembly of our people and see so many of them enjoying themselves. The community revelled in seeing their police officers enter into the spirit of the festival.

"Young and old all equally enjoyed the chance to interact and talk openly and freely about a range of issues affecting Mäori with our Iwi liaison officers," says Wally.

Commissioner Rob Robinson says a significant amount of positive comment was received about police attendance at the festival.

"Our visibility and overt support to this section of our community is one of the more influential things we can do, in my view.

"It would be great to see some new recruits graduating from the Police College over the next year who started thinking about police as a career as a result of the interactions at the festival," says Rob.