Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche said that if Mr Coster had not resigned he would have fired him, adding an ignominious full stop to what up until a couple of years ago had been regarded as a career of commendable public service.
That veneer cracked irreparably last month when the Independent Police Conduct Authority released an excoriating report into police handling of complaints against former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming.
It revealed that as his one-time boss Mr Coster was hopelessly naive at best and potentially subject to further inquiry at worst for both his actions and inaction concerning the case. The IPCA criticised Mr Coster for active and "unquestioning acceptance" of McSkimming’s side of the story, and for inactivity in not properly advising the police minister that the eventually explosive claims against McSkimming even existed.
Mr Coster left police for his now former role before the McSkimming scandal broke, but his hand was on the tiller for much of the period in question. In trying to keep his colleague away from stormy seas he has instead plunged police into the eye of a hurricane: the resulting loss in public confidence in the force will take years to be restored.
Mr Coster did the very least he could do in the circumstances, jumping before he was pushed and issuing a statement which attempted to sound suitably remorseful.
Saying that it was clear that the police’s handling of the whole matter was lacking and that he should have been faster and more thorough in looking into the matter sounded reasonable enough, but fell well short of the “significant misconduct” and “massive failure of leadership” outlined by the IPCA.
Mr Coster apologised to the rank and file who had been “adversely affected by these events”, as bland a description of a hideous scandal as could be imagined, when the occasion and scale of the disgrace to police demanded a full sackcloth and ashes approach.
New police commissioner Richard Chambers will be relieved that Mr Coster resigned, but the task of rebuilding people’s trust in the police will have got no easier in the manner of his departure.
Caught in a trap
As anyone who ever watched a Road Runner cartoon will know, the big problem with setting a trap is that Wile E Coyote is always the one who gets caught, rather than his prey.
Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary might like to reflect upon that as she considers her dreadful Tuesday night blunder, sending a list of AI-generated questions designed to trap Associate Health Minister Casey Costello to the minister herself rather than where Ms Leary intended them to go.
In and of itself this is no grievous sin. Ms Leary is hardly likely to be the only MP who uses artificial intelligence as a tool of their job.
Sending it to the wrong person, while embarrassing, can be laughed away as human error.
But what made it great TV— as Ms Leary would realise, having once been a broadcast journalist herself — was her ponderous, faltering and entirely unconvincing response when questioned by One News about the slip.
Front-footing the issue would not have made it go away but would at least have minimised the level of self-inflicted damage.
Dancing on the head of a pin only served to exacerbate it.
What makes this blunder more problematic for Ms Leary is that it is her second in a month, having posted an ill-thought through gripe on social media about "a miscommunication in my office" regarding an invitation to an event.
As an election year looms, she needs to be focusing on the core task of holding the government to account, rather than having to account for her own failings.
