The problem

Yesterday, the Auditor-General released their third monitoring report on the Response of the New Zealand Police to the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, showing that police were still dragging their feet on making the changes necessary to prevent a recurrence of the police rape scandal. This morning, Police Association President Greg O'Connor called the report "a ritual humiliation for police".

And that right there is the problem: a generation of senior police officers who simply refuse to accept that anything needs to change, and who regard the push for a better-behaved police force as an attack on their manhood. These people, and their toxic beer-swilling authoritarian culture are why Rickards and his rape-gang got away with it for as long as they did. And they need to go.

As for O'Connor, police officers may want to consider the effects such statements from their elected representative have on their reputation. If they want to signal that things really are changing, and that they will no longer tolerate crime by their own, then sacking him would be a good way to start.