The Problem With The ‘Independent’ KC Appointed to Review Police Conduct
LawFuel Contributor
The Independent Police Conduct Authority’s November 2025 report on the Jevon McSkimming scandal was brutal: senior leaders deliberately bypassed independent processes, showed “unquestioning acceptance” of the former Deputy Commissioner’s denials, and buried allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to possession of child exploitation material and bestiality images – all to protect a favoured succession plan.
New Commissioner Richard Chambers, styling himself an outsider, has responded by appointing Kristy McDonald KC to conduct the employment investigation into three serving Assistant Commissioners – Paul Basham, Angela Brazier, and Chris Page – accused of facilitating the cover-up.
Ms McDonald is unquestionably eminent – admitted 1981, silk 1999, ONZM 2019, a public-law and inquiry heavyweight. Yet her curriculum vitae reads like a loyalty card for New Zealand Police. It includes:
- Lead counsel for Police throughout Dame Margaret Bazley’s 2007 Commission of Inquiry into police sexual misconduct and cover-ups;
- Counsel Assisting the IPCA on historic child sex abuse cases (the same IPCA that just condemned today’s leadership);
- Regular member of the Police Disciplinary Tribunal;
- Police-appointed reviewer of the entire Cook Islands Police Service;
- Decades of civil retainers and advisory roles for the constabulary.
This is not occasional overlap but is rather the Police’s preferred silk whenever the organisation needs defending or delicately massaged.
The investigation, however, is an employment process. It will hinge on good faith, the Police Code of Conduct, the Employment Relations Act, protected disclosures, bullying, and possible serious misconduct warranting dismissal.
Kristy McDonald is not, by any published profile or track record, an employment law specialist. Her chambers and website emphasise public and administrative law, professional discipline, and inquiries; employment litigation is conspicuously absent.
In a scandal defined by institutional capture and the deliberate evasion of independence, appointing the Police’s long-term house counsel appears breathtakingly tone-deaf. No one doubts Ms McDonald’s personal integrity, but the need to avoid even the most minor perception of bias is essential.
The IPCA explicitly criticised the lack of “appropriate care and independence”; but they have chosen a lawyer whose expertise lies more in inquiries alongside police and is a choice that invites scrutiny.
New Zealand has no shortage of senior employment silks who have never taken a Police dollar, several of whom have spent careers successfully suing the force. Any one of them could have delivered both genuine detachment and actual expertise.
Instead, Chambers reached for the most familiar name in the institutional contacts list. Whatever findings emerge, the process will be seen by victims and the public as another polished exercise in containment rather than accountability.
Plus ça change. Appointing Kristy McDonald KC does not break the 20-year cycle of New Zealand police scandals but perpetuates it in silk.
Her appointment is a textbook example of why New Zealand keeps having the same police scandals on a twenty-year loop – the instinct to keep it in the family is simply too strong. Until someone has the backbone to appoint a genuine outsider, preferably one who has spent their career suing the Police rather than billing them, these “independent” reviews will remain what they so often are – impeccably mannered, expensively bound, and ultimately futile.
