Paul’s comment came in panel discussion at the University of Canterbury. She said "for a lot of people, [a police presence] makes them feel less safe".
This was after the police were heavily criticised for detaining and drugging an 11-year old autistic girl because they couldn’t tell that she was a child.
Mitchell asserted that "Our police are world class, they do an outstanding job".
Chris Hipkins characterised Paul’s views as "ill-informed, were unwise, in fact were stupid." Christopher Luxon accused Paul of "beating up on our police and accusing them of all sorts of things".
How stupid these men are now in light of the latest scandals of dishonesty in the New Zealand Police force. And how right Paul has turned out to be — the police are untrustworthy.
It is not just this latest scandal of senior police officers abusing their positions to bury a serious complaint against a powerful colleague that exposes arrogant misogynist politicians and their abusive political rhetoric.
It is also the investigation into 120 police officers for 30,000 falsely recorded alcohol breath tests. Let us also not forget Ms Farzana Yaqubi who was murdered by her stalker after police failed to take her multiple complaints seriously.
It is also the revelation that the police contracted Julie Christie to make an exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary about their hunt for Tom Phillips without the family’s knowledge or consent.
This recent litany of poor training, bad judgement, and dishonest behaviour shows a persistent cultural failure of the police. For ordinary people looking to the police for protection, the culture within the police force remains as unsafe as it was shown to be in 2007.
In 2007, the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct exposed how serious sexual assault allegations against senior police officers over many decades were ignored or condoned by their colleagues. At the time Police Commissioner Howard Broad declared that the report showed the "actions of a very few officers who have behaved disgracefully".
But he was wrong and further allegations and senior police resignations followed that report. The report’s recommendations were largely followed but it was clearly not enough to fix the culture in the police.
It is not a matter of a few bad apples. It is a matter of serious systemic failings that are repeated year after year.
In 2021 the police’s report, "Bullying, Culture and Related Issues in New Zealand Police" found a culture of intolerance of questioning or dissent; favouritism and protectionism; marginalisation and ostracism; abuse and intimidatory conduct; sexist and racist behaviour; inappropriate office culture; and lack of empathy. These behaviours can be found in the IPCA report on the McSkimming case released this week.
It is a complex picture, of course. A 2025 report, "Understanding Police Delivery", considered what bias exists at a system level in the police. They considered police behaviours that supported or eroded trust in police dealings with the public.
Relational policing that supported de-escalation, a calm demeanour and genuine empathy all helped people to feel more confident in police assistance.
But police behaviour also eroded that trust. Just as Paul said, people felt scared of the police. Others did not feel listened to or police were aggressive and intimidating. They felt unsafe and targeted, targeted because they were Māori or other racial profiling.
This racism in the police remains as serious as it was when Moana Jackson raised this exact issue 50 years ago in his seminal 1987 work, He Whaipaanga Hou Maori and the Criminal Justice System, A New Perspective.
There is no doubt that there are police officers who work hard every day to battle the culture of misogyny, racism and dishonesty in the police force. It is an uphill battle to both protect the public who ask for their help and protect the public from police who are untrustworthy.
These police officers are not supported by mainstream politicians who gaslight the critics. In fact, a politician’s instinctive denunciation of people who criticise the police make it harder for whistleblowers to expose the corruption that they witness.
If politicians like Mitchell, Hipkins and Luxon treat these persistent failures in the police as one-off behaviours by individuals, they will never provide the leadership needed to deal with systemic police misogyny, racism and dishonesty. Maybe the third of these is finally something they will care about.
Neither have police commissioners from Howard Broad to Andrew Coster dealt with the systemic problems and have themselves been implicated. We are yet to see if the current Commissioner Richard Chambers can do anything useful.
However, if he continues with the line that "this is not the way we do things in the police", then he will change nothing. Despite his protestations, in fact this is the way the police do things and have done for 50 years now, occasionally exposed but largely unchecked.
Pretending otherwise has meant none of us are any safer.
■ Metiria Turei Stanton is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party MP and co-leader.
