If you really felt that way, if you hadn't until yesterday realised what had gone on, which he had of course, he saw the report long before any of us did, then surely, you'd have come straight out starting blocks with an apology to Ms Z.
Wouldn't that be a bit more credible?
As for the Government, they've obviously been trying to get him out without paying him too much.
The bill is three months paid out. Essentially gardening leave. And, crucially, a statement from the Government that there was no cover-up.
That's despite the IPCA report having the strong whiff of one, or as Judith Collins put it, the walk, talk, and quack of one.
Coster's obviously done the calls in his head. The longer you stay on and fight, the messier it gets, reputation-wise. He'll be thinking about the next job, whatever and wherever that may be.
He strikes me as the sort of guy with a plan to maybe one day get into politics.
Local cop boss. Top cop boss. New 'modern' approach to policing. A champion of progressive policing. That sort of resume would get you pretty close to the top of a left-leaning party pretty quickly, I would have thought.
He's not stupid. But this scandal will rule him out of politics and pretty much all top public sector jobs in New Zealand, pretty much for life.
As the Police Association boss told us yesterday on this programme, front-line officers are being taunted over this.
Association with that sort of damage doesn't evaporate quickly. And the media culpa, the sorry, wasn't quick enough.
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.
1 comment:
Ryan makes a sharp point about Andrew Coster’s apology: sincerity isn’t something you deliver after three weeks of silence and negotiation. If you mean it, you say it when it counts — not when the lawyers have finished their crossword.
And that’s the thread that runs straight from the ex-top cop to Hagley Oval.
Because if Coster’s apology felt like it arrived on a conveyor belt from the PR department, tvnz sports commentator Scotty Stevenson’s had the same laminated gloss: technically adequate, emotionally vacant, and timed only once the temperature in the boardroom rose above “mild embarrassment.” Both men spoke the language of contrition, but neither quite sounded like they believed a word of it.
What gives the whole Scotty Stevenson saga its wobble is that, only a day earlier, he was perfectly clear that he didn’t feel awkward saying “syrup suckers” on air while covering the NZ-Windows cricket test.
Not a flicker of regret. No hesitation. No wince of “uh-oh.” He owned it with the ease of a man slipping into his favourite puffer jacket.
That’s the real Scotty — the version who tossed out the insult without a second thought, like a bloke casually flicking a wet towel in a locker room. And when someone truly doesn’t feel awkward using a term, it’s because they know exactly what it means.
His later claim of ignorance is about as believable as a cyclist insisting the red light was “more of a suggestion”.
Scotty would now have us believe he had no idea what “syrup suckers” meant — as if a man who has spent half his life marinating in New Zealand sports banter somehow missed one of Canterbury’s most enduring schoolyard jabs. Please.
The moment Christ’s College shot into view on the telly, the phrase shot out of his mouth faster than a Range Rover Sport leaving a Ponsonby valet.
That isn’t ignorance; that’s muscle memory.
His claim of needing “an education” on the term is about as convincing as a teenager insisting the vape in his pocket belongs to “a mate.”
This was Scotty scrambling for a corporate lifejacket after realising the suits were already rowing toward him with the formal-complaints clipboard.
And dragging in his kids to bulk up the apology was the final tell — the sort of desperate moral padding you reach for when the sincerity tank has run drier than a Christchurch fountain after summer water restrictions.
—PB
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