The longest-serving police area commander in New Zealand is in his last week on the job.
Mid South Canterbury area commander Dave Gaskin has been in the role for 25 years, and while he has loved the job, it was time for a new leader and new direction, he said.
With wife Linda also now retired, there will be time to catch up on the ever-growing list of jobs around the home, two children and four grandchildren to spend time with and a home in Twizel to enjoy.
‘‘We just want to be free agents for a while.’’
Inspector Gaskin first came to Timaru as a constable in 1977, and served three years before moving to Dunedin, where he married fellow constable Linda.
A climber with the Taranaki Alpine Club in his youth, Insp Gaskin had a lot to do with police through search and rescue operations.
‘‘Police were always held in a level of respect by my family.
‘‘I’d been to uni for a year, but that wasn’t for me, so I was just drifting. I was walking past the Christchurch police station one day and went in. I was looking for a direction, and this was the direction I took.’’
After seven years in Dunedin, the Gaskins moved back to Timaru on Insp Gaskin’s promotion to sergeant. They worked here from 1987 to1992, at the height of the gang tensions in Timaru.
‘‘The 1990s, with the gang operations, it was great fun being a police officer here.’’
A promotion to senior sergeant took the family to Christchurch, but with the larger centre over-resourced for seniors, he was soon back in Timaru.
‘‘They wanted someone to move to Timaru, and I wasn’t against the idea.’’
When the South Canterbury police district was restructured to become part of Canterbury, an area commander role became available, and Insp Gaskin applied, and in 1997, just over a year after the position was first advertised, he was appointed.
He has spent the longest of anyone as an area commander in New Zealand.
‘‘For me, this job the perfect job — it’s a mixture of leadership and operational.
‘‘You are really the glue that holds everything together. You’re dealing with frontline staff, and have limited exposure to bureaucracy, and I prefer that.
‘‘To get promoted, I would have had to go to Wellington HQ and that didn’t really spin my wheels. ‘‘It’s been a rollercoaster but it has been fantastic. I absolutely love the job, I’ve loved doing the job and I would love to keep doing it, but I think it’s the right time, not only for me and my family, but for this area, to have a new direction and a new leader.
‘‘There are things that need to be done, but not by me. I think I’ve achieved what I can, and it’s time for me to go.’’
He felt the area was in a good state for a new leader.
‘‘Our crime rates are really low, we don’t have much serious crime, and we’re able to deal with a lot of what we have got.
‘‘Timaru is safer than it was years ago — I was looking at some crime stats from 1992 and there were about 2000 to 3000 more offences for Timaru itself than there are now.’’
He said a lot of that was to do with a strong economy, and a reduction in the number of licensed premises.
‘‘If you want a job in Timaru, you can get one. And, there’s quite a large number of pubs that have closed in Timaru over the last 25 years — the problem wasn’t people drinking at pubs, it was them moving between pubs.’’
Most commonly, serious events police had to deal with were on the region’s roads.
Insp Gaskin could recall at least two crashes in which six people died, and, in more recent times, the deaths of five teenagers at Seadown.
Methamphetamine use and sales were a constant, and Insp Gaskin said shoplifting was on the rise.
‘‘Meth has been here for a while, and while any drug is a scourge on society, meth is a particularly insidious one.
‘‘There are a number of people who are dealing in drugs, but most of them are using meth, so they’re supporting their own habit and dealing among other users.’’
Getting the number of staff right was a constant juggle for the area commander.
‘‘Ever since I’ve been here, staffing has been a challenge. There are times when no matter how many staff you have, you haven’t got enough, and then no matter how few you have, it’s too many.’’
The area commander oversaw about 136 staff throughout Mid and South Canterbury, and as well as the main stations in Timaru and Ashburton, there were 12 outlying stations.
Police were at the forefront of tragedy in the community, and Insp Gaskin said that dealing with ‘‘the bad stuff’’ was one of the most difficult parts of the job.
‘‘I have a technique that’s worked for me. I think of my life as a book, and when I come to work, I open it, read a chapter, and when I go home, I close it and leave it behind.
‘‘You’ve got to develop the skills to get through it, because if you don’t, you’re not going to survive.
‘‘You’re constantly coming across people in bad times, or times of grief.
‘‘The hardest thing any police officer will say they have to do is go to someone’s house and — in some ways — ruin their lives.
‘‘When someone has died, there’s a sequence of events you’re setting off, and you have to act with dignity, compassion and empathy, no matter who the family is.
‘‘I’ve been to some families where I’ve been abused even before I have given the news, because they didn’t like the police.
‘‘And that grief, you have always got it, and every time you deal with it, it takes a fair bit of your soul, and I don’t feel like I have got much left.’’
He said he had been lucky to have had support from his family throughout his career; a wife who understood the demands of shift work was a bonus, but policing had seen him miss out on time with his family.
There had been highlights; receiving a QSM for services to police and search and rescue was ‘‘pretty neat’’, and he also cited all the staff he had worked with over the years.
‘‘Everyone I have worked with, for, or who has worked for me, have all contributed to the person I am.’’
Insp Gaskin said there were likely things he should have done differently, and he was sure he had made mistakes.
‘‘If I have made mistakes, I’d hope I have owned them.
‘‘But overall, I’m happy to go out feeling I have done the best that I can, and I believe the community is better itself than it was when I started.’’
