{"id":68904,"date":"2025-10-10T00:14:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/68904\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T00:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T00:14:04","slug":"victoria-police-officer-becomes-first-with-moko-kauae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/68904\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Police officer becomes first with moko kauae"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leading senior police officer has become the first M\u0101ori member of the Victoria Police to wear a moko kauae.<\/p>\n

Senior Constable Marlene Drummond, who is of Ng\u0101puhi descent, received her moko kaue after years of consideration and reflection.<\/p>\n

“I feel anchored to my heritage and ancestry, like I\u2019m carrying my Nanny with me,” she said.<\/p>\n

The moko kauae is a sacred taonga (treasure) for w\u0101hine M\u0101ori, representing their whakapapa (genealogy), wh\u0101nau (family), t\u016bpuna (ancestors), and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

\"Leading<\/p>\n

Leading Senior Constable Marlene Drummond honours her Ng\u0101puhi heritage with the traditional M\u0101ori tattoo. (Source: Victoria Police.)<\/p>\n

Drummond said it was a visual representation of her cultural identity and told her story of resilience and determination.<\/p>\n

The occasion was marked with the presence of several senior officers, including Victoria Police chief commissioner Mike Bush, who was New Zealand’s police commissioner from 2014 to 2020.<\/p>\n

Victoria Police said it was proud to stand with Drummond.<\/p>\n

Drummond’s celebration was also attended by the first Australian police officer to wear a moko kauae, in 2021, Queensland-based Senior Constable Brenda Lee,<\/a> of Ng\u0101ti Kuri descent.<\/p>\n

\"Senior<\/p>\n

Senior constables Brenda Lee and Marlene Drummond. (Source: Victoria Police)<\/p>\n

Sergeant Whiti Timutimu, Ngai Tuhoe, Ngati Awa and Ngati Porou, was the first female officer in the New Zealand Police to have a moko kauae in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading senior police officer has become the first M\u0101ori member of the Victoria Police to wear a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,4432,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-68904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-maori-issues","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}