Claire Trevett: NZ Herald political editor on Police Commissioner Andrew Coster's move to the Social Investment Agency

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has made the switch from top cop to head of a new Government initiative.

Coster will depart the role early in November - and take over as head of the Government's new Social Investment Agency.

 NZ Herald political editor Claire Trevett says Coster tried to muscle along following the change of Government last year - but he didn't quite click with the new Government.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now to talk politics as New Zealand Herald
political editor Clear Trevet.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good morning, Claire, Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Andrew Costa the switch from help being the top cop
to social investment. He's spoken quite a bit this week
about his job, and he hasn't shied away from his
expressing his views that politics, you know, really shouldn't interfere
with what is a politically neutral role.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, that's well an interesting ish development. I think it's
probably worked out well for both sides, really well for
all sides. I'm I'm not sure who was kind of
happy about it, whether it was Nikola Willis who now
gets Andrew Costa heading her social investment agency, or make Mitchell,
who now has Andrew cost stepping down five or six

(01:00):
months earlier and just ahead of those new gang laws
coming into effect when he will want to the police,
you know, enforcing those quite vigorously and being ready to
enforce them. So it's probably quite an ideal situation for
all of them. I did interview Andrew Costa this week.

(01:20):
He's quite a thoughtful guy. And he did talk about
the politicization of his role. He didn't really bother hiding
that he felt he had been politicized, but he didn't.
He didn't because he's the police commissioner kind of criticize
anyone specifically for it, he pointed out, well he did.

(01:41):
He pointed out it was kind of the nature of it.
Probably did make his life quite difficult at times, but
he pointed out it's the nature of his job, in
particular when you have an election campaign which is so
focused around law and order issues and crime and stuff,
and there was a big chasm between national and labor
on crime at the time. And you remember he was

(02:04):
it is technically, well, it is not technical by law.
He has operational independence and the police commissioner. He just
kind of said it would be a shame if the
Police commissioner's role became more or less a political appointment
and was always seen as one that changed when the
government changed, because it should be someone who can operate

(02:26):
at their independent level and kind of have the support
of both sides. Now, I think mart Mitchell and Andrew
cost did try their best to kind of muscle along
in a productive fashion after the change of government. But
it was always clear it was a fairly awkward relationship.
So Social investment is right up his ally really. I

(02:48):
mean in that interview there's a few observations he made
about the drivers of crime really which didn't get the
focus they did because of the drama of the night.
Like he talked about things like the cost of living,
for example, and the economic crunch and the impact that
that has on crime levels that police are seeing. And
he is also a big advocate of early intervention and

(03:11):
has been throughout his tenure as Police Commissioner, and really
focusing on preventing crime in the first place as much
as dealing with it at the other end. He also
made points about the police being increasingly stretched to sin
because they had to be dealing with what you might
describe as kind of social problems rather than crime itself.

(03:32):
That's kind of starting to be addressed with the shift
over of the mental health callouts and cases where there
isn't any threat to public safety or anyone's personal safety.
So yeah, he's quite a thoughtful guy. And the Social
Investment Agency, I mean, he goes from leading an organization
of about fourteen thousand to forty people. But it's something

(03:56):
that he can kind of really make his own because
it's relatively new in the way that National was doing it.
So yeah, probably an ideal outcome all around, really actually
gets what whoever has preferred Police Commissioner is in to
muscle along the response on gangs.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Clear we've got a recess in the House this week,
but we've also got the last few days the government's
quarterly plan what's expected to come.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
We do, and that is literally due to end tomorrow.
And the one big item that has not yet been
ticked off. This is the quarterly plan that Crystal Floodson
produces every three months with a kind of list of
things that they're going to do in next three month period.
It's a kind of tidy way to do it. It does
sometimes lead to things being rushed quite a lot just

(04:45):
for the sake of getting them done in that period.
But the one thing that's left is the government response
to the review on school property. And you might recall
that at the beginning of the year at Christanford said, right,
I've had a look at all the school property things.
There's massive cost blowouts, there's high spec designs schools, it's

(05:08):
all costing too much and it's basically a shambles. So
she reviewed, got the Ministry to review about three hundred
and fifty specific school projects that were pre construction. That
one hundred of them got put on hold completely and
others got rescoped. And then she commissioned a ministerial inquiry
which is headed by former minister and her former boss

(05:32):
actually Mary McCully, and to look at the way that
the Ministry of Education was handling school property basically and
that commissioning and construction and stuff. So that landed on
her desk. The recommendations of that landed on her desk
about almost three months ago now, I think, and their
government's expected to kind of make its final decisions on

(05:53):
it and hopefully unveil them next week, I think, because
it's the last thing on the ticklist. So I am
told that that review makes quite grim reading and it
comes at a time when the government's under real pressure
when it comes to capital spending, which is the spending
on things like buildings. For example, last week you saw

(06:15):
them more or less put the Dunedin Hospital rebuild under
review again because of the massive cost blowouts there. It's
still trying to decide what to do with the ferry
between the North and South Island. And then you've got
the kind of school property saying and at the same
time they're looking at during a business case on that
Waikato Medical School, so full one because the interim one

(06:39):
wasn't convincing enough. So yeah, it's a lot of not
much money and a lot of things to spend it on.
So keep an eye out for that school property review
and what the government's going to do around that for tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Thanks so much, clear and nice to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live the news Talks they'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.