Pollies: National's Mark Mitchell and Labour's Ginny Andersen on the latest McSkimming information, police culture

A damning report into the handling of complaints against Jevon McSkimming reveals interference and cover-ups during the "Commissioner-appointment" process.  

The former Deputy Police Commissioner is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to having child sexual exploitation and bestiality material on his work devices. 

A watchdog report finds some of the nation's highest ranking officers ignored a young woman's anonymous complaints against McSkimming and prosecuted her for harassment. 

Gagging orders were put in place to ostensibly protect the reputation of McSkimming - who was a top candidate to replace outgoing Police Commissioner Andrew Coster. 

It has been revealed that emails regarding the subject were also sent to the office of Police Minister Mark Mitchell, but he was blocked from seeing them. 

“They put a protocol in place whereby I was not to have visibility on it, or any of my political staff, and they were going to be handled by PNHQ,” he told Mike Hosking. 

“So I had no visibility on any emails that I received, you know, that came through my office.”  

When asked who is the bigger criminal in this case, McSkimming for his behaviour or Costa for covering it up, Mitchell told Hosking they’re as bad as each other.  

"It’s atrocious behaviour,” he said. 

“They have put the rest of our outstanding police officers in an awful position – who turn up every day and quite simply do outstanding work.”  

The concern for Labour’s Ginny Andersen is the impact this situation will have on public trust and confidence in the Police. 

“New Zealanders should have every confidence that if they take a complaint to the Police, that it is investigated fully,” she told Hosking. 

“It does erode public trust and confidence that taking a complaint forward will be taken seriously and investigated.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time for politics Wednesday. Mark Mitchell's with us along with
Jinny and this morning to you both.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Morning, Mike, morning, Jeff, Good morning to you both.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Right, So to you first, Jinny, because we've sort of
heard from Mark and the news today and we've heard
from Chambers of course, so a lot of people immediately
and this is the fascinating thing about politics days and
dates and times. Most people want me to grill you
and nail you to the wall because you were the
police minister when Costa god appointed, which of course you'll
immediately tell me is not the case, won't you.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, no, I wasn't when he was appointed. He was
already commissioner when I was Minister.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Of Place exactly. So just for the record, you know
what about any.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of this, I was not informed. Nothing was raised with
me during my time as Minister for Police. But saying that,
and having read that report in the small hours of
this morning, we understand that there's been multiple emails sent
to multiple ministers officers and so that search is now
going on to see if there were emails sent it

(01:00):
were raised.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
If you got sent emails, it would it be unusual,
I mean, how many emails as a minister would you
receive on any given week or month, And would it
be unusual if I wrote to you and said, I
want you to look at this because I've got a
problem that you wouldn't see it. And is that a
dereliction of some sort of duty.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, we get hundreds and Mark will be the same.
You get hundreds of emails, and specifically in the police portfolio,
you do get a range of different accusations coming and
you try, you know, offer staff are trained to set
through those to the best of their ability and take
the right action with each of those emails.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now you did get emails, Mark, You're you're saying this
morning that costs have blocked you from seeing them.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, they just they put a protocol in place whereby
I was not to have visibility on it or any
of my political stuff, and they were going to be
handled by P and HQ. So I had no visibility
on any emails that I received. You know that came
through my office.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is the request to be asked that if your office
did receive emails and the police were going, we'll take
care of it. Thank you very much. That no one
in your office at any point would go that's interesting.
Mark By the way do you realize this is going on?

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Well, I think the context around it is that because
number one, I just want to say that my police
private sex in my office, who are police employees, are
quite simply outstanding. They had no reason to question an
instruction coming from P and HQ, particularly the Commissioner's office,
because they would have thought, oh, this is great. The
commissioner is dealing with this, so you know it's been

(02:35):
dealt with at the highest level, so you know there's
nothing on them at all. They are outstanding, they do
a great job. But quite simply, it was a protocol
that was put in place that is really consistent with
the bad behavior that we've seen bought Ford and highlighted
in the IPCA report, which meant that I got no
visibility on them.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I asked Chambers this interested in your view, Mark, who's
the bigger the criminal? I use the word loosely, who's
the bigger criminal in this cost or MC skimming mc
skimming for doing what he's clearly done and the court
admitted to in the rest of it or cost of
for covering it.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, I think obviously MC skimming. I can't talk to
the to the court case because although he's pled guilty,
they still have sencing to come up. What I'd say,
Mike is that all of them are, in my view,
are as bad as each other. It is atrocious behavior.
They have put the rest of our outstanding police officers

(03:31):
in an awful position, who turn up every day and
quite simply do outstanding work. You know, they've all been
moved on. It's up to myself and the Commissioner now
to work hard and put in place measures that people
the public can have confidence that this will not happen again.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Have they been moved on and retired and have got
payouts or and or is there any criminal activity involved
or pending criminal activity something.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
That the commission and the police that's operational. They'll have
to have a look at all that I can say.
And again I'm not going to talk to each individual
employment case, but all I'd say is that all of
them have moved on. They have all gone and that
was the right thing to do, without a doubt. When
you read the IPCA report.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Is there any political blowback, Jenny, not for you personally,
but for the labor government. I mean, Costa was an
out of the box appointment, was a captain's call from
adern back. I'm assuming by Nash at the time he
was seen as like political, is there problems for you
down the track or not.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
The fact that nothing was raised with me, or with
other ministers of Police or even with the Prime Minister
demonstrates that there was a real failure there, a failure
of duty on behalf of police to keep people informed.
And my main issue is that New Zealanders should have
every confidence that if they take a complaint to police

(04:57):
that it is investigated fully, and particularly for sexual violence,
we know we have that underreported and so that is
my problem is that it does erod public trust and
confidence that taking a complaint forward will be taken seriously
and investigated.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Mark, if Costa can turn an eye or a blind
eye to this, what else did he turn a blind
eye to? And when will you be able to answer
that question definitively?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, I think that without a doubt, Commissioner Chambers will
be going back now and they'll be doing their own
pretty thorough internal investigations based off the IPCA report that's
come out. I mean, for both of us now, we're
really focused on making sure that we give the public
a sense that we're moving quickly, and we're doing the

(05:44):
things that we need to do to prevent this from
happening again, and obviously making sure that we are supporting
and reinforcing our front line who unfairly will be dragged
into this because every day we've got our fifteen thousand
stuff that get up and just quite simply do outstanding
work for me, you know. Sort of five months into

(06:05):
the job as the new minister, I was bringing forward
concerns for the PSC about the capability and delivery of
the of the police Executive. I didn't have much confidence
in them. And the only reason I can think of
that that Labor themselves, this was their executive that they
appointed didn't do that is because they had a rolling

(06:26):
mall of ministers. They had Poto Williams, Chris Hipkins, Stuart Nash,
Meghan Woods and Jinny. But the reality is we just
got to look forward and we just got to make
the changes now and put the things in place to
be able to fix this and give the public assents
that they've got every reason to be able to have confidence.
We've appointed an outstanding commissioner, Richard Chambers. The actions that

(06:49):
he's taken in his first twelve months around the refocus
on integery and standards has been outstanding, and I know
that I made some you know, my first twelve months
I had a big focus on that too, because I
did feel like there had been a degradation and focus
around standards.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeahs Mark, I don't want to turn this political this morning.
There's a difference between being useless and being well. You know,
once again loosely used a crook, Jenny, if I'd come
to you as minister and said, look, you got half
a dozen in there that are clearly up to no good,
would you have been surprised.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
We had absolutely no information from police that this was occurring,
and so of course we have high expectations of the
level of service and the duty of police, and we
had trust and confidence at that point in time that
they were doing their work.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, what a happen?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So what we do support though, and I think it's
I've been encouraged to date that there's been some good
recommendations set forward of how we work, whether you're labor
or national on how we got this right. And I
think the recommendations to try and restore public confidence, including
the appointment of Inspector General, is something that we can

(08:08):
both work on together. And essentially I think we need
to do remove the politics from this because I think
it is so important that New Zealanders have that trust
and confidence restored in New Zealand police that this is
something that goes beyond political lines.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Do you know, either of you? So Costa loses his
job now, I'm assuming assuming also he's done nothing wrong
in his new job. Does he walk with a payout?

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I can't, to be honest with you, as a minister
might I can't speak to that because there is a
psc process underway and I can't compromise that. Sorry, look
at Patter if he did, would it looked bad? Well,
I think most members of the public would. That would
be their view on it. You know. I just think

(09:00):
that we've got a lot of work to do, without
a doubt, and we're just getting on with it. And
you know that the enormity and the size and the
atrocious behavior of our most senior police officers in the
country is a complete and utter, you know, breaking the
trust that they have with the public. We've got to Yeah,
it is. And but but the one thing I'd say, Mike,

(09:21):
if I just finish on this is it is In
the last couple of weeks, I've been to several awards
ceremonies for our police. Most of those awards that have
had that our police officers that have put themselves at
risking their own lives on the line to save members
of the public. That's what they do every day. They
deserve to have our support. This is a very small
bunch of individuals at the top of the organization. I

(09:43):
get that, and I recognize that we're going to move
to make sure that we fix it. Yes, we are
going to put an inspector general in place. That's important now,
and I just want to give everyone a sense that
both the Commissioner and I are working very hard to
make sure that we can maintain public support and our police,
and that we continue support.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well said Ginny, you can answer on behalf of both
of you, because I've got a bit of this this morning.
I don't believe it's represented at the white of public,
but this is nevertheless, Mike, these two politicians covering their asses.
How can anyone trust politicians and police?

Speaker 2 (10:11):
You say, what, Well, it's very clear that nothing was
raised with me during my time as police Minister by
the police. So if we don't have that information and
we're not briefed on what is happening, then it removes
their ability to act decisively. And I think that any
minister are respective of the political party, if they were

(10:32):
provided with this information, they would not have appointed those
people and they would have taken action.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Well, see, appreciate actions speak louter than words, and we
just got to get on and do actions. Now.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Appreciate it. Ginny Anderson, Mark Mitchell.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
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