Police Commissioner Richard Chambers says he's pleased with the progress made over the last year. Photo / RNZ, Samuel Rillstone
By Sam Sherwood of RNZ
A year on from taking the reins as the country’s top cop, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers sat down with RNZ’s national crime correspondent Sam Sherwood to discuss his fraught first year in the job and how he plans to rebuild trust and confidence in the police.
Sitting in an office on the eighth floor of Police National Headquarters, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers reflects on his first year as the country’s top cop.
“I love my job,” he begins.
“This year has been tough, no doubt about that. I found myself dealing with a lot of things, but I always knew that that’s the job that the commissioner has.”
For Chambers, the “at-times chaotic” year began two days before he took on the role when he was briefed on an investigation into allegations of sexual offending by then Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.
A month later came another briefing – child sexual exploitation and bestiality material had been found on McSkimming’s work devices.
And then, before the year was out, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) released a scathing report into police’s handling of allegations made about McSkimming, finding serious misconduct at the highest levels of police – including former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.
In a wide-ranging sit-down interview with RNZ, Chambers discusses the last 12 months, including the scrapped controversial retail crime thresholds, how 130 police officers came to be under investigation for falsely recording breath tests and how he plans to rebuild trust and confidence.
It was late last year when two men underwent the final interviews for police commissioner, McSkimming and Chambers.
Both held high ambitions and both men had taken different routes to the interview table.
For Chambers, he says he joined the police in January 1996 as he “just wanted to be a good policeman”.
“[I] always wanted to join the police from the time I was a young lad, nothing’s changed ... I never set out to aspire to be the commissioner, but I felt that I had something to add. I’m quite determined to make sure we focus on the right things for our country, and for my workforce. So I decided, yeah, I’m going to give this a go.
“And when I turned up for my interview here in Wellington, I put on the table what I stood for, what I understood the priorities needed to be, and gave the choice to other people, and I’m the lucky one.”
In November last year, it was announced that Chambers had been appointed as the commissioner, taking over from Coster.
Chambers didn’t officially begin the job until November 25. However, two days beforehand, he was given a briefing from a Detective Superintendent about allegations involving McSkimming from a former non-sworn employee who he had an affair with.
“I was advised that there was an investigation under way, that they had just put the right processes in place, the right structure around that, and that that investigation was focused on a complaint that had been received some time ago.”
Chambers says he was assured that the right people were involved, including “very capable specialists”.
“Even with what I was briefed back then, I was gutted to think that this was something that would ever occur.”
The following month, during the police’s investigation into the allegations, they discovered child sexual exploitation and bestiality material on McSkimming’s work devices.
Chambers was briefed.
“To receive a call to say that this had been found, albeit very early days, was just inconceivable, unbelievable.
“I feel for the 15,000-plus men and women of [the] New Zealand Police who do a great job day and night across the country to have this sort of thing found within any part of the organisation, particularly within the most senior levels, is appalling.”
Chambers spent New Year’s Eve alongside some of his colleagues in Tauranga and Tokoroa, policing the festivities.
He then went back to where he was staying with his family in Taupō. About an hour later, he was woken by a phone call. Two police officers, Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming and Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay, had been struck by a vehicle while on foot patrol in central Nelson.
“I knew it was not good. I said to my wife, ‘I’ve got to turn the light on, iron my police shirt’ and drove to Wellington.”
By 9am, Chambers was in Nelson. Later that day it was announced that Fleming, who had been in the police for 38 years, had died.
“The loss of Lyn ... was, without question, the toughest thing that I’ve dealt with this year in my first 12 months,” Chambers says.
“It is the worst thing for any police colleague to ever have to deal with. But, you know, five weeks into my time as the commissioner, it was pretty tough, actually, but it’s always going to be tough, that sort of tragedy.”
Chambers says that on day one of the job, he made it clear that one of his priorities was supporting the front line, which included their safety.
“Every day, I get messages telling me about staff on the front line who are assaulted, and I’ll make a point of reaching out to as many as I can, just to acknowledge some unpleasant circumstances.”
Then, in September, while in Australia attending the funerals of two Victorian police officers who had been shot while on duty, Chambers received a call to say Tom Phillips was dead and a police officer had been shot multiple times.
“I felt a bit helpless actually because I couldn’t get home quick enough ... I got home as quickly as I could, and then went to the Waikato [region] where I supported my staff and of course, our colleague who had been shot, who is incredibly lucky to have survived that, because it was incredibly close, too close.”
Another one of Chambers’ priorities when he became commissioner was retail crime.
In May, RNZ revealed a directive was sent to staff about not investigating retail crime below certain thresholds.
The directive said “nationally standardised value thresholds” were to be applied when assessing theft and fraud files. The value thresholds were: general theft $200, petrol drive off $150, shoplifting $500, fraud (paywave, online, scam etc) $1000 and all other fraud $500.
Following the revelations and a significant backlash, Chambers canned the directive, which he called “confusing and unhelpful”.
Looking back, Chambers says he was “disappointed” when he first heard about the existence of the order, after RNZ’s story.
“I expect better than that ... that report to me said that we might have thought about doing what was easy for us, but we aren’t in this job for what’s easy for us.
“We are in this job to provide a service to New Zealanders, and that includes the retail community and so members of that community, you know, if they have a view that police don’t take their complaints seriously ... that’s not the place that I want an organisation to be in. So I said, ‘no, that isn’t happening’.”
Chambers said he had been “very clear” that retail crime was an “absolute priority”.
“We are getting fantastic results as a consequence of that focus. Our resolutions are increasing. We’re holding people accountable. That memo and those thresholds that some thought were going to be helpful, no, I got rid of that because that’s not the New Zealand Police service that I want to be leading.”
Then in August, a new mapping feature to analyse breath-testing data identified an anomaly that led to the discovery of more than 30,000 “falsely or erroneously” recorded tests involving about 130 staff.
Chambers says he was “disappointed” when he was informed about the discovery.
“Integrity matters and trust and confidence in police is critical, and it’s those sorts of events that are most unhelpful.
“But I hope that coming out of it is that there’s an awareness that we will continue to do audits, we will continue to review performance and where expectations don’t meet what they need to be, then we’ll act on it.”
Asked what he had been told about what rationale had been given by the staff involved, Chambers said he did not know.
“We were meeting our targets ... we had done incredibly well in terms of our road policing delivery, so none of that was necessary.
“It’s hard to understand what was driving it, because we were doing well ... if we were in a situation where we weren’t quite meeting our targets, then we get out there and we do more breath-testing. We don’t manipulate a device to tell a story that’s not true.”
Last month, the IPCA released its report into the police’s handling of allegations of sexual offending by McSkimming.
Before it was released publicly, copies of the report were sent to a small group of people, including relevant ministers and Chambers.
Chambers said the one word he’d use to describe his initial reaction after reading through the entire report was “anger”.
“New Zealanders deserve better from the most senior levels of New Zealand police, and so do people across my organisation. They want to be able to believe in their leadership. They want to believe that their leadership is competent and focused on working really hard on the right things.
Chambers says he was “shocked” when he read about the concerns from senior police at the time that the allegations could harm McSkimming’s chances of being commissioner.
“Anyone who deserves to be the commissioner of [the] New Zealand Police must get the role on merit by being focused on the right things, and to think that people put their career pathways before, you know, integrity and leading 15,000 people for our country is beyond belief.
“There’s no other way to describe it, than they were clearly, as the IPCA report says, very focused on someone’s career pathway and aspirations to be the Commissioner of Police. Thank heavens that never happened.”
Within minutes of the report being released, Chambers says he called the woman’s lawyer and expressed his disappointment in what he had read and apologised on behalf of the police about the treatment she had endured and that she was not taken seriously.
Chambers wants to reinforce that what happened involved a small group of the most senior leaders of police and did not reflect the rest of the organisation.
Several “C” words have been used to describe the IPCA report, from collusion to cover-up and corruption.
Asked where he stood, Chambers said everyone had their own opinion.
“The word corruption is a very strong word, but, you know, I have heard a number of people use that word to describe this. I want to be able to move on from using certain words that might describe this behaviour.
“I want to focus on leading the organisation forward and doing the right thing, being positive about what we are doing. We’ve already made significant changes. I want this chapter, if there’s a C word, I want that chapter to be bookended and then we can move forward and do all the things that the public expect us to be doing as senior leaders and as an organisation and working hard for victims, which has always been a priority. I said that on day one, and this chapter is one that has let a lot of people down.”
The IPCA report recommended employment investigations against three staff, former Assistant Commissioner Paul Basham, Detective Superintendent Chris Page and Angela Brazier, the executive director of the Firearms Safety Authority.
Chambers said he had engaged a King’s Counsel to lead the investigations and anticipated some findings before Christmas.
Chambers readily concedes that his first 12 months has felt “at times chaotic”.
“I haven’t had a break yet. I have not had a day off.”
Asked how he navigates dealing with such a high-pressure job, Chambers says over his career, he’s developed a better understanding of what strengthens his resilience.
“For me, there’s a range of things. I love to go for a run, I look after my diet as best as I can. I do my best to spend time with my wife and children. I try and get a decent amount of sleep. That’s probably my biggest work-on at the moment.
“I try and find time to do things that I enjoy doing, whether it’s fishing or mountain biking or whatever it is ... but for me, I felt my running in particular this year, and the support of my family, has helped a huge amount.”
Despite feeling like he’s put out more fires than he had anticipated, Chambers says he’s also “really pleased” with the progress made on a number of fronts, including restructuring the police executive, which he felt was “too big, too expensive”, and putting the savings into frontline policing.
He also points to progress on retail crime and the gang legislation and says he’s hopeful the police will meet the target of 500 extra staff next year.
“I’m really, really pleased with the progress that we have made, and the feedback that I get from my staff across the organisation and also the public is really, really encouraging.
“So whilst, yes, [I have] put out plenty of fires, the balance to that is that we have made a lot of progress and I’m really pleased about that.”
Chambers says he is only in Wellington one or two days a week. The rest of the time he’s around the country, while also travelling overseas for international obligations.
“I work really hard to be as visible as I can.”
Over summer, he will spend a couple of days at the Rhythm and Vines festival in Gisborne working alongside frontline staff. He will be working in Nelson on New Year’s Eve.
“I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that I’m the same person who applied to join [the] New Zealand Police in the late 90s. I’m still a policeman. I’ve still got a contribution to make to the operational environment, and I know that my staff enjoy me being out and about with them, because it sends a very clear message that I’m working hard to understand the world that they are in day and night.”
On Tuesday, Chambers announced the focus for 2026 was on the four priorities he outlined a year prior: core policing, supporting the front line, leadership and accountability, and fiscal responsibility.
Specifically, he had set goals for service, safety and trust, including getting trust and confidence up from 69% to 80% on police surveys.
The other benchmarks included getting satisfaction for services to 80% from its current 71%, a 15% rise in resolutions for retail crime and a 15% reduction in violence in public places.
Chambers also points to a 20% increase in Māori numbers in the police over the past five years.
He says his first priority is to get a new leadership team in place, which he was hopeful would be announced in the next few weeks.
“Then I’ll have the opportunity to reinforce my expectations and the priorities that we as a senior leadership team will focus on ... ”
A year ago, as he stood at a press conference alongside Police Minister Mark Mitchell, Chambers told media he didn’t talk about policing by consent, a popular phrase under Coster’s leadership.
“I talk about trust and confidence,” he said.
“It’s fundamentally important that the police have a trust and confidence of the public, and we’ve got some work to do at the moment.”
Chambers told RNZ on Tuesday that there weren’t too many people he had come across who understood what policing by consent meant.
“Let’s focus on doing the basics well. We all understand what trust and confidence means, whether that’s internally or externally,” he said.
“We have moved up a couple of percentage points around external trust and confidence, which is good, but recent events like the IPCA report and other things have a potential impact on that. So we’ve got to learn from those situations. We’ve got to make some changes and we’ve got to keep trying real hard, and I’m determined to ensure that we return to the high levels of trust and confidence that [the] New Zealand Police has had, albeit quite a few years ago, but there’s no reason we can’t do it again.”
– RNZ