True to form, Cahill did not shy away from sharing his thoughts on current pressures facing police and calling on politicians to stop the partisan scrapping.<\/p>\n
Outgoing Police Association president Chris Cahill supports rolling out body cameras. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
He deemed officers\u2019 mental health as police\u2019s \u201cmost pressing issue\u201d, citing a police survey that found more than half of union members saw mental health as a serious issue within police culture and said they had worked while \u201cmentally stressed or traumatised\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey echo the findings of researcher Garth den Heyer, who concluded that 10% of officers meet the criteria for a diagnosis of [post-traumatic stress disorder].<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if police doesn\u2019t take proactive steps to get ahead of this issue, we risk a full-scale collision with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He advocated for the Proceeds of Crime fund \u2013 money linked to criminal activity which is seized by police \u2013 to be used to expand access to mental health specialists for officers.<\/p>\n
Speaking to media after his speech, Cahill said insufficient support was provided to officers to help cope with daily stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers should be able to get in front of a psychologist as soon as possible, whenever they want to, and that at the moment is missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does cost money, but we gather millions of dollars a year from criminal enterprises; we only need a small part of that to come back to police to pay for that mental healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cahill estimated it would require a \u201cfew million dollars\u201d, noting the union had proposed an initiative to Police Commissioner Richard Chambers that would be a \u201cgood start\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Chambers said he had discussed the matter with Cahill and would consider making a Proceeds of Crime funding application for the initiative.<\/p>\n
The potential for officers to wear body cameras was a central theme of the conference. Members would hear from experts on the topic and debate what legislative framework would be necessary.<\/p>\n
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers is open to exploring body cameras for officers. Photo \/ Mike Scott <\/p>\n
Cahill, who supported bringing in body cameras, said the Government was \u201cvery interested\u201d in the idea but was primarily concerned by the potential cost, which could be as high as $300m.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged it would also come with another cost to store the footage, noting that then prompted questions about the level of public access to that footage.<\/p>\n
When Chambers became Police Commissioner, he indicated his interest in evaluating the introduction of body cameras in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
He reiterated that interest in his statement, saying \u201cpreliminary work\u201d assessing \u201coptions and costs\u201d was being done presently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe introduction of such technology required careful consideration of legal, privacy and operational issues as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cahill\u2019s nine years had been a tumultuous time to represent roughly 10,000 officers amid pandemic-inspired protests, complex and delayed pay negotiations, the Christchurch mosque attacks and the deaths of officers Matthew Hunt and Lyn Fleming \u2013 the latter he described as his \u201ctoughest days\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also included some pointed criticism of former commissioner Andrew Coster, claiming offenders under his watch were being given \u201ctoo much leeway\u201d and \u201cdisorder and intimidation were going unchecked\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers felt powerless, and communities were frustrated,\u201d he said of Coster\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n
Cahill was slightly more forgiving when speaking to media, accepting Coster began his tenure amid the Covid pandemic, which may have \u201chijacked\u201d his plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he didn\u2019t resonate with police staff,\u201d Cahill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new commissioner does, they understand his language, it\u2019s a lot clearer and equally, I think the Government is saying they want to see more visible policing, and he\u2019s responding to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the deputy political editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s press gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"True to form, Cahill did not shy away from sharing his thoughts on current pressures facing police and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3255,3110,4282,61314,3276,34094,2841,26635,30548,8473,5904,61687,28163,33443,42,134,61688,78,25449,1885,43,16546,23421,32956,675,2572,9345,40,38,41,39,21419,4483,1455,8218,4576],"class_list":["post-79938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-address","tag-association","tag-boss","tag-cahill","tag-chris","tag-collision","tag-country","tag-delivers","tag-distress","tag-done","tag-final","tag-fullscale","tag-grave","tag-heading","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-imposing","tag-in","tag-level","tag-mental","tag-news","tag-nothing","tag-officers","tag-outgoing","tag-police","tag-president","tag-speech","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-towards","tag-union","tag-warning","tag-warns","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79938","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=79938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}