Please be aware, this episode of Family Matters discusses suicide and other challenging issues around mental health.
In this emotionally charged episode of Family Matters, Simon delves into the heavy but crucial topic of mental health struggles faced by police officers in New Zealand. Special guest Allister Rose, recipient of the New Zealand Bravery Star – one of our highest awards – shares his harrowing personal journey of confronting an armed offender and the subsequent PTSD that altered his life. Allister discusses the founding of the Blue Hope Foundation, an organisation dedicated to supporting police officers grappling with mental health issues, from depression to suicidal ideation.
The episode sheds light on the alarming rates of PTSD and suicide within the police force, the systemic challenges in addressing these issues, and the life-saving impact of early intervention and community support through Blue Hope.
This is a topic rarely discussed in New Zealand, but one that needs to be had. Don’t miss this compelling conversation that underscores the immense pressures on police officers and the vital need for greater mental health advocacy and support.
To check out more of Blue Hope’s work, check out www.bluehope.co.nz
Show script auto-generated by Descript app:
Simon O’Connor: Hi everyone. Welcome to Family Matters on what’s actually going to be quite a new topic and a very heavy topic today, but I think one that’s going to be very dear to the hearts of our viewers and listeners. because we’re talking about our police force, we’re talking about our police officers, the men and women in blue and actually the struggles that they.
Face, and the person I’m about to introduce you to has been a police officer has been awarded New Zealand’s Bravery Star, one of our highest awards and a man who’s dedicated himself to supporting the men and women in Blue who fight everything from depression to PTSD to suicide. So it’s a heavy topic, but an important one.
And so to Allister Rose NZBS, welcome to the show.
Allister Rose: Thank you. It’s a fantastic to be here, and an absolute pleasure to better speak with you, Simon.
Simon O’Connor: Allister, you’ve got such an important story to tell, not just through your own experiences and life, but also what you’re doing through the Blue Hope Foundation to support our police officers both current and leaving.
And so we, we should delve in through this discussion, obviously into the huge need if I’m not being presumptive, but the huge need we have here to support our police officers. But I thought if you might, I was very moved when you and I talked the other day about your own story and background and I just wonder if you would mind sharing a little bit about yourself, how you’ve come to found the Blue Hope Foundation, your time in the police, and of course to receive, which is why I’ve put it here, I don’t often put people’s post nominals, but it’s not every day that I get to talk someone who’s been awarded the Bravery Star. And as I said at the start, one of our highest honours, the highest recognition. So again, welcome to the show, Allister. And yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Allister Rose: The New Zealand Bravery Star is one of our highest decorations in New Zealand. It’s up there with the Victoria Cross and I’m incredibly proud to have been awarded it. But it represents a bit of a bad day in the office, so I was one of the Graham Burton shooters in 2007.
Graham Burton had just murdered Karl Kuchenbecker and shot up a few other people on the hills of Wainuiomata outside of Lower Hutt Wellington. And prior to being a police officer in the New Zealand police, I’d served most of the nineties as a paramedic. In the UK and returned home as a very experienced and very qualified paramedic.
But in those days the early 2000s they didn’t accept British qualifications as a paramedic. So I’ve been bitten by the emergency bug. Loved working for the emergency services, loved being in uniform, loved helping the community. That was my background. My parents were very community minded and I got that bug off of them as well.
And I went into the police and yeah, a bad day being confronted by an armed offender. And thankfully that day I was armed to myself. And unlike Matthew Hunt I was able to protect myself. When I was confronted with an armed defender and Matthew Hunt’s is a different story, but it’s also very similar to mine.
And once, once we shot him we hit him in the leg and blew out his femoral artery, which is a major artery in your leg. And the rounds that you use in the police are called hydro shock, the hollow point nose, so they don’t travel through the person and hit an innocent person behind them.
They stopped, but they stopped hard and so they had a lot of damage in his leg where we got him. And I was a paramedic, I was able to first shoot him, put on a different hat, then save his life. he was leaking pretty good. And yeah, so of that, and it was a good story for police the training that we do get in New Zealand police is excellent.
We have the best police force in the world. If you’ve been overseas to Africa or Eastern Europe or anywhere like that, where, or even Bali, where they’ll take a back hander off you. New Zealand police are hardworking and they are trained and they’re honest. And we’re so lucky to have such a great police service in this part of the world.
A lot of people were very happy to bag them. But I, myself was lucky to be in the police. But of course I now suffer the consequences of my policing background. Slowly after the Burton shooting, I noticed that my mental health was starting to go backwards. And after probably about 10 years, it, it got to the point where I was so paranoid and really not contributing to the organisation that I respected that I had to leave. And so I went to WorkSafe, which was actually quite, I enjoyed my time at WorkSafe, but I also learned about health and safety law and occupational health law, working with A CC, working with the new Health and Safety Work Act and I didn’t know it at the time, but life just does these things for some reason. I don’t know why, but I needed that knowledge further down the road when I found out that I definitely had PTSD from the Burton shooting.
Simon O’Connor: Sorry to jump in, clearly something that had its cost, I think, a lot of New Zealanders would be grateful for what you did to protect yourself and the community at that time. They’d be thankful. But actually it came at a significant personal cost to you.
Allister Rose: It did come at a significant personal cost. And you know that I always say, you take the queen’ s shilling, so you’re expected to do the job.
And I did my job, but I do suffer the consequences of doing that. And I don’t blame anyone. It’s up to me to manage my health. And most police officers think like that. We’re very practical people. Just want a fair crack at the work. Sit on the right path. To find our help except that we’re damaged by the job.
There are, under health and safety law, there are some provisions now that that, that do protect workers injured in the workplace. But nonetheless I had a workplace injury and now I had health and safety legislation knowledge, and also A CC. Knowledge and I was going through a process with my mental injury to get myself some help so that I could keep contributing back to society, which is, what I’ve always done.
And and that was a hard road to home, man, when you were mentally. When you’re mentally buggered, like I was, you’re paranoid, you’re muddled, you don’t know who to trust, you don’t know what you’re being told is right. I thought I knew some stuff about from my health and safety training, fairly sure that I had it right, but you just don’t know, and so I stumbled my way through A CC with the the PTSD claim. I got my work related mental injury claim done. But I was pushed from pillar to post. I really didn’t know what I was doing. Had to engage lawyers to help me at one point. And for a police officer to engage a lawyer, that’s really hard they’re all on the other side of the fence from us.
Simon O’Connor: I was going to say , as I’ve mentioned to you before we started recording, my dad’s a an ex-cop, uncles and mates and friends, and so yes, they would say the same thing. Not that they’ve had your breadth of experience or particulars in this space, but dealing with A CC, many listeners and viewers would know how hard it is, let alone adding that mental injury, as you say, which creates that anxiety, frustration, uncertainties, but you clearly made your way through and I suspect through what you’re doing with Blue Hope now is trying to help people in that space to, to navigate. There’s still quite difficult system.
Allister Rose: It is a difficult system. But we’re lucky to have it. There’s no other country in the world that has a system like ACC where, if I was a cop in England, for instance, I would have to sue the police force to get rehabilitation and the compensation that I would’ve been entitled to. But here in New Zealand, we’re so lucky that we’ve already got all that. But that doesn’t make it any easier to access, particularly if you’ve got a mental injury and you’re not really that sure about how to go about things. And you’re a police officer, you fall between the cracks.
Once upon a time you were the person who was the protector, and now you need, you are the person who needs the protection and. And that’s really hard of to move that, that mind frame. When you’ve left police, you’ve left your safety net behind. You’re no longer a police officer. You’ve lost your identity.
You’ve got this enormous mental injury that you’re trying to understand. But I got my way through it. I found my way through it. And I always remind people that was my family that got me through this, my, my wife, my children, my mother, father, and my siblings. And it’s thanks to them that I’m still here to able to talk about it now.
When, when some of the stuff that was going through my head when I told my mother about it, she was absolutely devastated. That I was actually thinking like that, that I was having suicide ideation and I was frustrated that I was that, the feeling of worthlessness.
And it was my mother that stopped me doing that. And that later, that thought later became the Ima project, which I’ll talk about shortly. it’s always the moms that recognize the mental injury. And I’ll come to that.
Simon O’Connor: I just want to jump in and say I totally agree.
Look, I’ve not been anywhere near the experiences that you’ve had that in times of my life where I’ve been quite angry and frustrated and I’ve not had the where for all to recognize that it was my mum. And I still remember in one instant she said, you’re very angry, Simon. You’re not happy. You can, I can see through the mask.
And it’s quite something. Mums have this real gift.
Allister Rose: Yeah they do. We’re still a matriarchal society. And I don’t know whether that’s a politically correct thing to say. I don’t know, but that’s the fact that I noticed. But I managed to get through it.
But while I was going through it, a really dear friend of mine who also had PTSD, he was a dog handler here in Wellington. He he’s suicide and we all knew that he had PTSD. And he was exhibiting all the symptoms of PTSD, the boozing, the arguing with the misses at home, arguing with the children, the paranoia, all the stuff, especially the boozing.
All of which, I was part of. Anyway, he ended it. And that was devastating. He was such a loved police officer. His name was Ben O’Connor and he was always on TV with his dog Ox, his dog was called Ox named after Mike Oxton, who was a famous detective sergeant in and we were all devastated we all loved Ben.
He was a big, gentle giant. I was particularly good friends with him, used to spend a lot of time hunting and fishing with him, away together and doing blokey things. But at his funeral, myself and some of the other crusty older cops I’d left by this time they realized that I had the New Zealand bravery star and there’s a lot of cut through with that and people are very interested in it.
They also realized that I had a really good qualifications with. My work safe qualifications, my, the health and safety. I was a a qualified health and safety inspector
Simon O’Connor: and a paramedic of course. That comes with a great caring attitude and set of skills.
Allister Rose: It does, I’ve got I’ve got a medical background of that, and of course I’m talking medical stuff as well, so You’re absolutely right, Simon.
So I’ve got a very unusual background, New Zealand Bravery star, which gets me cut through, I’m not seen as some sort of kook. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve got the health and safety training of the medical training. And so over a few beers at Ben’s funeral it was suggested, I don’t know whether what actually was suggested or whether I thought they were suggesting it, but anyway, I picked up what was being put down.
And I started the Charity Blue Hope Foundation and basically the charity I thought when I started the charity I thought, oh, it’s just going to be me helping a few of the blokes get through what I’ve just been through telling them about how I did it. But my God, it’s what started as a drip has turned into a very serious flow of people.
And at any one time, we’ve been going three years now, at any one time I’m looking after 20 blokes or 20 people there, there’s women and males in there. And they come in the door and when the phone rings and I hear their voice and I think, oh, it sounds just like I was, the cadence you can just tell that they’ve got some real mental health problems. They’re slow to talk, they just not engaging, but, and we, the systems that we’ve got, that we’ve developed now they’re very simple systems. We just get ’em to the GP, get them registered as an ACC injury. Get depending on how far down the track they are, we have fantastic lawyers frontline, more bit of a punt for them.
They look after cops that. Some of them are ex-cop themselves, police prosecutors, so they understand what it’s like to be in uniform. They understand the language, what they use that we use the culture that we are. And that’s really useful. And we get them, we basically case management through ACC or the police, A EP provider.
The A EP system is. It is terrible for our mentally injured cops. It might be okay if you’ve broken your leg, but if you’ve got a mental injury, the AEP system is heavily weighted towards the employer.
Simon O’Connor: Is that the employer assistance program? I’m just getting that right. Is that the employer assistance program that you’re referencing a lot of people would hear of in their own business?
Allister Rose: Yes, it is. So it’s the ACC . Provider that large companies like police or Tallies or in most of the government departments, the hospitals, they all to reduce their ACC levies bill, they employ any number of the AEP providers or ACC third party providers around New Zealand and they manage it.
But the thing with it is that there’s very heavy involvement of the employer, which is very damaging for police officers with a mental injury. We know throughout our comparisons with using ACC and using that the police, AEP provider, the ACC, just really concentrate on the rehabilitation and the weekly compensation, which is in the Act.
They follow the Act very well. And there’s a layer between ACC and the employer, which is New Zealand Police, but with the AEP provider, there’s no layer. There’s just an open door. They’ll come in and look at your private medical records and then repurpose them for an employment.
And we have that. We have that all the time. They, like I said earlier on, most cops just want a fair crack at the whip. They just want to get better, get on top of this injury and then start contributing back to society again. However that might be. That might be driving a truck, a logging truck around Gisborne is nice and peaceful.
You’re by yourself. You don’t have to put up with the aggression anymore. We’ve got blokes doing that. Flying a drone, or flying a drone spraying course. We’ve got a chap doing that. He is just by himself. With his drone. That’s all he wants, he just wants to participate somehow in society where he doesn’t have to put up with the aggression that he is suffered?
Simon O’Connor: I think many of us, myself included, can only imagine that the stresses of the police. It’s a stereotype, but when you know certain things are hitting the fan most of society runs one direction. You guys run towards it. It’s what, you’re trained into it, but I’d argue it’s a natural inclination of something you want to do.
But it, again, it clearly comes for some with a huge burden. And would it be right to say Allister? For some, it’s quite difficult to talk about this, but I imagine, as I think about my own dad, when he went to the police clubs, he was with his mates. There’s a certain language, a camaraderie, a dark humour if you will that cops can talk to cops.
And so you at Blue Hope are obviously providing a space where they are comfortable to come and talk about what they’re facing and obviously beginning to help them on that ACC journey. But can you give us a quick idea of just, if you will, and to the extent you can, just how big is this problem?
You talked about 20 cops, which I think in itself is quite a large number that you are working with. So this is not an isolated situation. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Allister Rose: No. The, the flow is constantly coming in the door and any one time I am looking after 20 cops, they come in, they get help and they go out the door again, a few months later and get on with the rest of their lives.
That’s how it works. We know through a study called the Garth den Heyer Study the prevalence of PTSD in New Zealand Police, which was a groundbreaking study. About three years ago, I think it was. Garth den Heyer was a police officer who was an inspector at police national headquarters, left and became a PhD.
A professor works for the University of Arizona. Now he did a study into New Zealand police, which was, it was a groundbreaking study before that we had relied on international studies. There was never any data about New Zealand police. And we know from his study that about 14% of respondents to the study police officers both serving and retired, 14% are clinically symptomatic with PTSD.
So they’re like. They’re like the Ben O’Connors of this world and me, the ones that have the potential to, to commit suicide. So we have a police force somewhere. It is huge. And we have a police force or a police service size of between 10 and 15,000 people. So we know that there’s about a thousand police officers out there that are clinically symptomatic, but prob ably for one reason or another won’t come forward and talk about it. And they’re ones that are at risk of suicide. So we set up, you have to remember, we set up this this charity and our vision is zero suicide in Police. We set this charity up at Ben’s funeral.
And so we, we are very interested in suicide in New Zealand police we. Know that it affects the whole of our economy, our society. We felt that when Ben died. So we know from lived experience that it’s a real thing. But also in 2023. We had three police officers commit suicide in one month.
Now that’s never happened again before. Three serving police officers in uniform died by suicide by their own hand. You’re more likely to die by your own hand as a New Zealand police officer, then you are to be shot and killed on duty.
Simon O’Connor: I assume this isn’t really talked about in public very much we’re not allowed to report or discuss these things.
So this is pretty, quite new information for a lot of viewers.
Allister Rose: A lot of people won’t know this. And also that, that supports or that helps the police narrative. That, we keep it on the downlow, nothing mentioned. You, if you do so you won’t find this information. But there was a, there was another study that Garth den Heyer did just recently.
It came out in May this year that reports that I think it’s about 14% suicide rate police in Australia and about 24% I’m not sure. I’m not sure about the figures, but there’s something along those lines in England and Wales. Garth’s done a study about that, and I can send you that study if you like.
But our suicide rate is very low. It’s 5%, but that’s only there’s under reporting, we don’t talk about it. We are very controlled by the Coroner’s Act in New Zealand. The Coroner’s Act is very strict on about reporting of suicide and that, that helps the police case. But police don’t want to be airing their dirty laundry.
And don’t forget that, I’m an enthusiastic ex-police officer. I’ve got a lot of respect for New Zealand police. I’m not bagging them, I’m just telling you what I’ve noticed.
Simon O’Connor: Oh, I’ve been in politics. I obviously not police, but in politics, very few in leadership or government departments, even a corporate want to, as you say, air their dirty laundry, so it’s just quietly pushed to the side. And as you say, the Coroner’s Act, we’re not allowed to talk about these things. And I assume too, Allister, when it’s former cops who make that very sad choice to end their lives, that police won’t be keeping a record of that. They’re not tracking every ex-police officer. So a lot of numbers just go undisclosed and unknown.
Allister Rose: Yeah. They won’t, there’s no box to tick to say that you are a former police officer when you’re filling out the appropriate paperwork for a suicide. That you will only know that in police circles of so and so died, he hung himself the other week.
Oh God, I was on a on a diving course with him and the police, or he was on my wing when I was on the police. I knew him well. We did so many jobs together. I’m so really sad at that he’s died, it is that’s the sort of conversations you have when you are amongst police officers, whether you are serving or retired.
We all talk to each other. We still talk. And the word gets around and. The words getting out now, that is hard to, that’s why they’re finding it so hard for people to join the police is who wants to join a job where, you might end up bloody topping yourself.
And words getting out there the new generation who do not want to do this type of work. And that’s a shame , like I said, the New Zealand police is the best police service in the world. They’re hardworking. And they’re honest, but we’re at a junction now that the current government said that we’re supposed to be supplying 500 new cops, but no one wants to do it.
And this is part of the problem the help’s not there. If you’ve got a mental injury, you’re on your own son. Until we came along anyway.
Simon O’Connor: I was going to say, it’s slightly political, but I can, and please correct me on this. I suspect obviously more pay helps, but actually money itself is not going to be replace the need for good support, as we’ve said a few times your role be it as obviously a former cop and a former paramedic, it’s highly stressful. And so there needs to be a lot of support put around, which really it does sound like there hasn’t been. And so Blue Hope comes along and it sounds like you’re filling a really important gap.
Allister Rose: We are filling an important gap. And I just want to say about those 2023 suicides that the Ima project popped out of that. And since the, that 2023, we’ve stopped at least 10 suicides in cops. There’ve been no suicides that we know of since 2023 within police and that’s we talk to people, we’re doing stuff that, that is basic occupational health engagement.
We are talking, we are saying we want to speak to you. If you’re having problems contact us. We have systems to help you. We’re not a backward country. We’ve got a fantastic ACC system, albeit a little bit hard to deal with, but we’ve worked that out. We’ve got a fantastic Health and Safety at Work Act.
You’re entitled to these protections. We’re not a backward country. Let us help you. And so the Ima project was born out of those three. Three suicides. We engaged with the families and said What went wrong? How could we, how can we fix this problem? And they, and the families were saying to us, the mothers, the sisters, the widows, we tried to engage. We knew there was something wrong. We didn’t know who to turn to with, we turned to police wellness. We were turned away. They were, we were treated as kooks, they just didn’t want to deal with it. But they come to us we’ve got such a focus on suicide in New Zealand police.
We jump and we know how serious this is. If someone’s mother’s coming to us and saying, hey, I’m really worried about my son. He did a really bad job and he’s boozing and he is sharing all these symptoms. He’s arguing with his Mrs. He’s shouting at the kids. He never used to do. He’s not the man who I married 10 years ago. All the stuff I hear, and I’m not making this stuff up. This is lived experience. I have this every day. And we step into it. We step into action. We do not want that person to top themselves, and there’s really good systems in this country. We can stop it and we can, we’ve proven that we can stop it.
I know for a fact that I’ve stopped 10 cops killing themselves since 2023, and I hear every day from police officers, I don’t know what I would’ve done without Blue Hope. I don’t know where I’d be now. We can get them through it. It just doesn’t need to happen. And I would really prefer that they came to us early so that we could get ’em back into the police.
But by, at the moment, by the time they come to us, they’re so broken. There’s no way they’re going back into the police, there, there’s only one way they’re going. If we see them at the moment is, they’re going to be eventually exiting the police and that’s no, no use. I’ve spoken to the police commissioner having the ambulance at the top of cliff rather than like it is at the moment about at the bottom of the cliff.
The police are a big, mysterious blue ship. It’s very slow to turn. They’re not going to do anything that Blue Hope says in a hurry. And I know that I know how the police work. But in the meantime, we are going to carry on with what we’re doing we know that it’s making a difference.
We know that we’ve stopped 10 guys killing themselves and we know that we stemmed the suicide flow. Our preference would be is that we were. More engaged with police and their wellness systems to help them. But maybe in a generation that’ll change, I don’t know. But at the moment, we’re going to keep going with what we’re doing it works and we’ve got an excellent board.
We’re a organisation that is the only organisation of its kind in the world, and it’s been done in little old New Zealand we’ve got the training, the health and safety training, the training through ACC. We’re also a disabled persons organisation through the United Nations Charter for disabled people.
So we are tied into how, and that’s working as a DPO or a disabled person organisation, that’s really just an engagement tool. We’ve been doing that all along. But when I met David Rutherford before Christmas, who was the last Human Rights Commissioner, fantastic man. Very learned up about human rights, which is, obviously the business that we’re in at the moment, human rights are police officers though.
And he said to me, do you know if I said to you, ” nothing about us without us”, but you know what that meant? And I said, I’ve never heard that phrase before. He said, that’s the core philosophy of the United Nations Charter for disabled people or DPO. “Nothing about us for our without us”. And that kind of makes sense actually.
I’ve been already doing that. So we want to have our voices disabled police officers with PTSD. About how we’re treated. We are a unique culture within New Zealand we have our own sense of humour, our own way of dealing with things. We slip through the gaps we’re neither in the police now.
Neither are we, civilians. You, it’s very hard to speak our language unless you’ve been there and done that. Of course, I’ve got the lived experience and that’s why blue Hope works so well.
Simon O’Connor: That’s why we’ve got the credibility. A random counsellor or a psychologist or doctor, which by the way is a good thing if they want to do it, but actually talking to someone like you as you say, lived experience. And I know we’ve touched on it a few times, but you’ve got the ribbon and the medal too, which gives you a greater kudos.
Can I just jump in? ‘ you’ve mentioned Ima a couple of times. I’m not sure. Is that an acronym for something which I’ve missed?
Allister Rose: Ima is a Hebrew word for mother.
Simon O’Connor: I should have known that! Oh, you’ve exposed me.
Allister Rose: I don’t suppose you’re fluent in Hebrew there, there’s no reason why you should have known that.
But it’s the email project is the project. Yeah, based called Ima for mother and that recognizes the mother’s, my own mother, for instance. If you remember, I spoke about that a few minutes ago. And the woman who, who just recognized the stuff recognized when the police worker comes home, whether it be male or female.
It’s still the woman who recognized it recognized that there’s trouble. And it’s also the woman who pick up the pieces afterwards. If there’s been a suicide, it’s the mothers and the widows that have to pick up the pieces. And Ima is such a powerful engagement tool.
It’s our premier engagement tool. We want to hear from women if they notice that there’s something happening, we want to hear about it. And we’re, we are constantly looking for funding for the Ima project so that we can engage with women up and down the country. We are a national organisation.
We’ve got people from down to Invercargill that we’re looking after. And we have to do it. Via the internet otherwise there’s really there’s only myself, a few volunteers and the board doing this, and we’re all volunteers. None of us are paid. And, no, I can’t be everywhere at once.
Simon O’Connor: No you haven’t mastered bi-location yet, that saintly quality has been in two places at once. So it strikes me that Blue Hope, if I was to put it into two buckets or columns at one level, you are helping cops navigate the likes of ACC and health and safety to get their assistance.
But you’re also there to provide in that sort of second bucket or trajectory that counselling, that support, that voice an ear and a voice. Would that be right? Those are two elements of what Blue Hope is involved with?
Allister Rose: Yeah. I like to call it signposting or navigation. like I said, cops are really practical people.
They just want to know how, oh geez, I’ve got something. I need to fix it. How do I do it? So I just point ’em in the right direction. And if you, they’re so damaged that they can’t even get themselves to the GP to start the process, then I’ll take them and I frequently write to the GP beforehand and say, hey, this was us, this is the script that you need to follow. These are the codes, this is the date the injury occurred. All that stuff. It just makes, it, makes it go easier. But if they can’t, something, some people are so badly injured and remember these people used to be uniform police officers and now they’ve severely mentally injured.
And some of them want to kill themselves. Some of them are having ECT therapy they’re so badly damaged. And if you remember, that goes back to Lake Alice. I didn’t, before I started this job, I didn’t know that we still did that in New Zealand, but it’s actually very effective treatment for the loop of suicide ideation that keeps going round and round in your head.
It’s really powerful stuff for breaking that. And it works, but, some of these people are so sick that they need this stuff and they just can’t get themselves to the GP. So we’ll do it, anywhere in the country. I’ll be there and I’ll take ’em to the GP and start the process. And that’s the sort of stuff that you need.
You, you won’t get that from anywhere else. They’ll trust me to do it I’ve been there and done it myself. I’ve got the New Zealand Bravery Star. I’ve got the learned experience for the stuff. I’ve had the police commissioner ask me what, why don’t they come to us? And I said you’re the ones who damage them.
They don’t trust you. They’ll trust me. of the learned experience. If you connect me with them, I’ll do it for you. But of course, that’s probably a little bit too practical. And like I said, it’s a big blue ship. It’s very slow to turn. Maybe in a generation I’ll do that, but, and I hope police officers out there that are seeing this see that we’ve been talking to the police hierarchy. We’ve been talking to the current commissioner, Richard Chambers or Felix as he’s known in the police. And I know he’s a good man and, he is in, he’s in a position now where, he’s the CEO of a massive law enforcement organisation in New Zealand, and it’s going to take a long time for it to change.
That’s fine. We’re going to keep going. We’re doing really good work. We are having successes. They probably find us a bit annoying.
Simon O’Connor: You’ve got a needle, says me to you, often in leadership – doesn’t matter if it’s in the public sector, police, corporate, political – no one really wants to admit there’s a problem there’s time and cost.
And so you need people like you advocating in there and saying, Hey, we need change. And I would add too, it doesn’t surprise me that the cops don’t want to talk into the existing police system in the same way that, most viewers and listeners would not want to go to their boss at work at the moment and say, Hey look, I’m really struggling
‘they fear for what might happen. So I think it’s one of the reasons why we wanted you on the show today is to talk through not only the real need, but for people to understand the advocacy you are doing. So I really, the final question from my side is if people want to support you, and particularly financially, you said you and the others are volunteers, but this takes time and money.
If people want to support you, if they want to donate, where do they go?
Allister Rose: Go to our website, www.bluehope.co.nz and you can donate there. And we rely on donations. We run this outfit on the smell of an oily rag. And it’s a yeah it’s not a, it’s not a big charity like some of the other charities out there.
I like to call us a “big, small charity” but we’re doing such fantastic work. I’m so proud of the people that are volunteers that, that are helping us. We’re making a huge difference. Like it’s hard to demonstrate to you just the amount of change that we are creating as a small charity.
And the difference that we’re making to New Zealand society is enormous. We are getting these people back on their feet. They’re getting back into the, back, into the workforce. Yes, they’re having to leave the police, but they’re still contributing to our society. And, I don’t I won’t go to another police funeral ever again.
They’re so hard. I just can’t bear it.
Simon O’Connor: You’re supporting, we don’t like suicide of anyone or in any circumstance. When it comes to our thin blue line, these are the men and women who, as I said earlier, rush to the front, they look after us, they protect us.
We feel absolutely sad. You mentioned Matthew, who was shot and killed in Auckland a few years back. New Zealand reacted to that and it’s my hope that New Zealanders not only through this conversation and others get to know that other police officers are dying in different ways of the mental stress and the anxieties that we have that equal visceral reaction to it and go, hey we’re going to do something about this and I think one of the ways is to support what you are doing. Allister.
So look from, I’ll have to wrap the podcast up here, but actually, is there any final message that you might have before I rudely close things down?
Allister Rose: I’d just like to say that, be really proud of our police in New Zealand.
They’re such hard workers, they’re so honest. Don’t believe what in the media about it. We have the best police force in the world, and as New Zealanders, we can be very proud of that. But also police officers need your support and I sincerely hope that, that just by doing this podcast that it creates some discussion about our cops they are good b**tards .
Simon O’Connor: I’m pleased you ended it that way. It reminds me of my late father and the way he was sometimes speak. Allister, I’m exceptionally grateful for your time. I’m even more grateful that you’re sharing some of your own journey. I can only imagine that in doing so at times it actually exacts a toll on yourself.
But I’m just grateful that you are still with us, that you are now, leading hope for so many others, not just cops, but their families, and I certainly encourage viewers and listeners to jump on to Blue Hope or the Blue Hope Foundation’s website. So www.bluehope.co.nz Read more about what they are doing and obviously support them.
So Allister, thanks for being part of the show.
Allister Rose: Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on board.
