Transcript of Q&A with Howard Broad, Commissioner of Police at media conference

This question and answer session followed an opening statement by Howard Broad, Commissioner of Police.

Tuesday 3 April 2007 at 1:15pm

Q: Commissioner Broad, you've been a member of Police now for a long time, you have obviously witnessed this slippery slope -- how did it come to this part?

A: To this part now? This is a surprise to many of us who have been in the Police over the period of time I have. These are actions of a very few officers and they have brought disgrace upon us all. I think that the few cases where the investigations were not handled well have contributed to the situation we now are in and it is my determination that the future is going to be better than what has been the past.

Q: So you weren't aware of any of the cultures that have been talked about in the report when you were a younger Police Officer?

A: The Police that I joined was more male than it is now; the Police that I joined had a different attitude to alcohol than we now have. The Police that I joined was certainly operating in quite a different social environment. I believe a sense of work hard, play hard which I think was not uncommon about that time. I think a lot of those characteristics of the Police, like elsewhere in society, have moved on. We are an organisation that is quite different demographics these days, lot of work to do. But also attitudes to alcohol have changed. Attitudes generally have moved on.

Q: What assurance can you give us that the perpetrators of those actions of through the 25 odd years that Dame Margaret's report looks at, haven't risen to senior positions in the Police and haven't taken those attitudes with them?

A: I think that Dame Margaret answers that. She says that particularly over the last 10--15 years, complainants who have come forward have received a sensitive reception from the Police. The investigations have been of acceptable quality. There have been a few cases and mostly they are quite historic, where things were not done properly. I quite believe that in the future the risks of this sort of behaviour being undetected are much reduced and I would expect those things to be dealt with.

Q: What is the most important recommendation that's going to have that effect that?s going to improve things? Can you point to a couple of things that are actually going to make a difference?

A: I think the most important is the code of conduct. I think that when we talk about the Police culture and this sense that Police Officers have overly exercised loyalty towards their colleagues, partly that comes from their operational setting, they depend on those colleagues, they are unlikely to report matters that are of concern if they do not have trust in the system that is there to receive those messages and deal with them. Therefore Code of Conduct, the manner in which the code of conduct is enforced, which is the disciplinary regulations, the early warning system and then the commitment of leaders in this organisation to deal with those issues are the four things that I would see as being the primary planks of the future change.

Q: How was it Commissioner that a man, I'm referring here to Clint Rickards, was promoted by a Commissioner through the ranks to Assistant Commissioner by a Commissioner that knew full well he had indulged in group sex with teenager?

A: I can't answer that question. Matters relating to Assistant Commissioner Rickards are in a disciplinary process now. That is a process that's prescribed by law. I am responsible for the process. I may be a decision maker in it. Anything that I say about that frankly compromises that process. So there may be a time when that question can be answered, but nows not that time.

Q: Do you accept Dame Margaret's Bazley's comment that the disciplinary process within the Police is inadequate?

A: Yes, emphatically.

Q: How can we then have confidence then that Clint Rickards will be treated properly within that process?

A: That is the process that is in place, I am determined to use it as I'm required to by law. That is impartially, without bias, taking into account only the factors that I'm allowed to. And that's all I can say really.

Q: Then with that process if it's flawed, how can we be sure that there aren't people in higher ranking positions who do not deserve to be there?

A: It is flawed in the sense that it gives the public wrong messages about the Police and how we deal with conduct. I have to point out that during the 25 years of the term, the scope on this commission there were quite a number of Police Officers who were dealt with through that disciplinary process. The fact that the process complex, convoluted, long has allowed other characteristics to come at play. I think Dame Margaret talks about people which have been allowed to disengage or retire early. Which has been something that I think has caused complaints and members of the public to think that this is not a reputable system that we operate. But it still did operate.

Q: So as a result of Dame Margaret's investigation are there any other senior officers who are going to face disciplinary action?

A: Dame Margaret's report dealt with a large number of complaints. My understanding is that they have all been dealt with, or are in the process of being dealt with, so they are out there. Obviously since the finish of the commission there is a continuing Police organisation that has to deal with behaviour of its Officers. And we continue to do that. There are no other senior officers to my knowledge who we have allegations against for which we contemplating disciplinary action, but there are other officers who are in the various stages of disciplinary proceedings.

Q: Most of the cases that have been publicly prominent involve guys at one area one time with a few people, does the report give any explanation for that to show it was completely wide-spread or was it particular some Districts?

A: The publicity seems to have focussed on the Bay of Plenty District but the cases that comprise the work of the commission fall throughout the country.

Q: How would you describe morale in the Police at the moment?

A: Well, over the last 14-18 days I have visited every Police District. This is my third series of visits in the one year that I have been Commissioner of Police to each Police District. Morale has been very good. There is a certain resignation to the then imminent arrival of this report, but Police Officers are going about their work, these are splendid people in almost all cases, they are doing extremely good work, they are picking up commentary from the public, which I think is unfortunate, and they are doing so and continuing do their work in a very professional and decent manner. They express confidence in me and they are aware of the difficulty of the situation regarding the Commission and these other cases that I am currently in, but they express support.

Q: Helen Clark said that with Schollum and Shipton's that had previous convictions been known then the outcome of other case would have been different. Do you agree with that?

A: I think it's fair to put that sort of issue into this big bucket of question about whether or not criminal justice system serves these sorts of victims. You've also seen in the commentary around this that there's a balancing of the rights involved. I think that the taskforce that the Prime Minister has inaugurated is the right place to consider all of those issues. The Police will contribute as fully as we can to that ministerial taskforce, which the Minister of Police will be a member and I will be in the Chief Executives group that will support that. We will give that our fullest attention and clearly we will have a point of view that we'll feed into that process.

Q: Is there a risk at all that the pendulum may swing too far the other way and may be too aggressive in scrutinising actions of Police Officers in the risk that you might damage someone's career?

A: I think that would have to depend on the quality of leadership in the organisation to ensure that it doesn't happen. At the moment Dame Margaret's criticism is that the system provides too much protection for Officers. They've got the protection not only of general employment law, because of, and also administrative law the natural justice stuff. They've also got this process that's mandated by Police Act and Police Regulations. Trying to get that process to work swiftly and effectively has been difficult. But we still manage to get it to work and we think we do good decision making in that. In the future I expect that to continue, it is about judgement in these things. I would not like to think that the system we put together has inherent bias so that Police Officers are raced out of the Police organisation without foundation. As I say the central point is that both the public and Police Officers must trust the system, it must work for both, and I think at the moment that's not the case.

Q: Just with this code of conduct have you had concerns or expressed concerns that there hasn't been ???????

A: Yes. There was an attempt a number of years ago to amend the Police Act. The politics stymied that particular initiative, mostly about something that was unrelated to this, it was about what considerations an arbiter had to take into account in settling Police pay, something about being ability to afford the settlement which ran into some difficulties but the whole amendment process stalled. You will remember that the Minister withdrew that Amendment Bill last year and replaced it with the intention to re-write the whole Police Act.. That?s the process we're in now. The Regulations sit underneath that. We do have the opportunity now to redraft these regulations. They govern the process for disciplinary inquiry. We are intending to place that before the Minister within a very short period of time and hopefully that will be carried through into action within a short period of time as well.

Q: Had there been a code of conduct earlier how different do you think the outcome may have been?

A: I think, we're an organisation that has people in it for a very long period of time. The average length of service for sworn Police Officers is about 12 years. There are an awful number of people who have been in the organisation for as long as I have in fact longer. Therefore we're talking about people who were recruited in the 1970's, 80's and behaviours that were shaped then. They've been modified by out approach, social changes and all the things that have gone on. To have had code of conduct several years ago would have advanced the process of change but would mainly affect things in the future as opposed to way back. If we'd had the code of conduct in the 1980s I think that would have made a difference. The code of conduct takes you into a lot more personable responsibility about your own actions rather than seeing things as now which is a series of offences not to breach. This is about proactively managing yourself in your employment sense and also because we're an organisation where Police Officers are Police Officers 24 hours a day, also some off duty behaviours become relevant to the connection with this organisation.

Q: You've grown up through the Police, is there any behaviour that you've reflected on yourself as a result of this and you think you may have done differently yourself?

A: I think I partied hard in my early stage, as I think there were a lot of us who'd have to put our hands up to that. If you remember Supt. O'Fee when he spoke publicly a couple of weeks ago, I think we'd say that attitudes to alcohol in the Police in the 1970s were quite different that what they are now. I also think that during the 1980s there was a fairly dramatic reform of how Police did police work. If you think to the Official Information Act for example in 1982, that brought in by about 1985 a disclosure system. I mean up until that point criminal prosecutions were a bit like an ambush, you know. Then in the late 1980's there was the Children & Young Persons Act, The Bill of Rights Act, the Privacy Act. All those things have had fairly substantial changes into Police practice. And I think that's been part and parcel of the change to the way Police view how they go about their business.

Q: The report highlights some huge failures in Police management. How much blame are you willing to accept and are Police management willing to accept for allowing that to continue?

A: I think I have to take full responsibility. I am the only one who can frankly. I can't change what's happened. I am deeply apologetic for the harm that the small number of Police Officers with a small number of and breakdowns in our process has caused. Really what I can do is to commit to move this organisation to point where risk of this sort of thing happening again is minimal.

Q: The report also talks about the inability for senior management to get policy statements right down to the front line Police Officer. Is that fair? Has that changed?

A: I think we're getting better. I think the point that Dame Margaret makes which I think is a really good one is that we ought to have quite a deliberate checking mechanism. That is to go and audit whether in fact the intentions behind a policy change have been carried through into effect. Now what tends to happen is that you make a change, you put together an implementation project and then you have a process that signs off the completion of that project, have we done everything that we said we'd do. What we don't do is the next step in say has it had the effect that we intended it would have. Now that's sometimes quite a difficult thing to do but I think the message is that it's critically important that you do it, otherwise why go about this change if you're not going to actually prove that you've made the change.

Q: Do you think the management structures within Police, you talked at one stage about having a flatter management structure at least flatter delivery structure for policy, do you think that's feasible?

A: By policing standards internationally we are probably the flattest management structure that there is. I think the issue is that can we be sure that once the Police Executive decide to make a policy change, does it transfer through the chain of command to the Officer whose behaviour we want to change and are we sure that some time in the future that the benefit of this policy change has been realised. I think that's the key thing.

Q: From the number of complaints of sexual assault, how many current serving Officers now were involved in the 130 odd complaints?

A: I don't have that detail in front of me. Do you have that Malcolm. We can get you an answer to that.

Q: One of the recommendations, number 40, is about policies and standards around Police having relationships with people they meet while working. How do you see that working? Is that going to be problematical?

A: I think the real change we have to make there is having Officers skilled at judging the power balance in any relationship. If a supervisor strikes up a relationship with someone who works in the group that they responsible for then they need to declare that and deal with the conflict. If there is a relationship that starts, or someone thinks about starting a relationship that's sort of like a complainant, an informant, a victim, that sort of thing, then those are relationships that in most cases I can think of, if not all, are wrong. They are taking advantage of that imbalance of power, someone who is in a vulnerable situation. Now, not everyone will see that vulnerability. And we have to I think, it is incumbent on me and other senior staff in the organisation to put in place training education and some process to make sure that those things are recognised and proper action is taken to prevent this type of situation.

END OF QUESTIONS

Conference advised Michael Player would be the lead conduit for further follow up on this issue.

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