KEY POINTS:
The dame did it. In the Beehive. With a heavy object. The release of the damning 450-page report of the three-year Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police sexual misconduct meant yesterday was always going to be a day of penance for the New Zealand police.
However, sole
commissioner Dame Margaret Bazley waited until her 60th and final recommendation to deliver the really crushing blow to police self-respect.
She effectively declared she was not confident the police would fully implement her recommendations now the commission has completed its work and been "discharged".
So to make sure the police do as they are told, they will have the Auditor-General breathing down their necks for the next 10 years. That office will monitor how thoroughly the police implement her other 59 recommendations and report that progress (or lack of it) back to Parliament.
On top of that, the State Services Commission will carry out an annual "health of the organisation" audit of "police culture" for the next 10 years.
For the police, it is the bureaucratic equivalent of home detention with no remission until 2017.
Sitting on the stage of the Beehive theatrette yesterday, Dame Margaret conveyed her usual presence and charisma of someone who has spent their working life marooned in the public service typing pool.
However, the now-retired departmental chief executive was always too sharp, too shrewd and too darn tough to have to worry about image. If anyone was going to lift the lid on the the police's handling of sexual misconduct in its ranks over a 26-year period, this former senior state servant would.
Yesterday she delivered. With Dame Margaret sitting alongside Prime Minister Helen Clark and Police Minister Annette King, it was difficult to envisage a more formidable female troika.
Dame Margaret read a statement and then - ever the non-political servant of her political masters - refused to answer questions on the grounds that the commission had been wound up. As she said, her report spoke for itself.
Helen Clark and Annette King were uncompromising in demanding the police get their house in order.
But they had to be careful not to be seen further undermining public confidence in the force when it is their job to restore it.
So Helen Clark found other ways of conveying her feelings about the "disgraceful" conduct exposed in Dame Margaret's report.
She acknowledged the "courage" of Louise Nicholas and Judith Garrett, the two women whose complaints were the catalyst for the inquiry. It was a way of saying the report provided some belated vindication for the pair making their complaints.
The Prime Minister also confirmed what had long been suspected - that she blocked Clint Rickards' promotion to deputy commissioner level after becoming aware of allegations of sexual misconduct on his part.
After a couple of weeks of Labour being smacked around over smacking, the smack of firm government could be heard resounding all the way up Wellington's Molesworth Street from the Beehive to police national headquarters.
The Commissioner of Police, Howard Broad, got the message, "unreservedly and unequivocally" apologising to women caught up in the sexual misconduct of police officers.
It might have been the day for apologies elsewhere in the law and order branch of the public service.
By coincidence, killer Graeme Burton was sentenced in the Wellington High Court to preventive detention which will see him serving a minimum 26 years in jail.
Case closed, the Corrections Department remained silent, however.
