Police union sees first leadership change in decade as Chris Cahill calls time

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

After nearly a decade as the voice of New Zealand’s police officers, police union boss Chris Cahill is stepping down - and South Island sergeant Steve Watt is stepping up.

From the Christchurch mosque attacks to the deaths of frontline officers and Covid-19, Cahill has led 13,500 police staff through some of the toughest years the thin blue line has faced so far.

And on Wednesday afternoon, at the Police Association’s annual conference in Wellington, he handed over the reins to Watt, a senior sergeant who has previously vowed to make officer safety his top priority.

Watt, a 25-year veteran of the force based in Queenstown, has spent most of his career on the frontline.

He joined the force in 2000 after doing a BA at Otago University and, at the same time as applying for police, applied for a real estate agent job. After getting both, he faced a tough choice.

“It’s a bit cliché, but I had always wanted to drive fast and lock up baddies,” he said in a 2021 interview.

Watt, a self-professed “true Southern Man”, is expected to move to Wellington in the coming weeks to formally take up the role with his wife (who is also in the police) and their two sons.

News of the new appointment has been met with praise around the motu. One North Island detective described Watt as having “his finger on the pulse”, while an Auckland frontline officer hoped he would be a “man of his word”.

Speaking to The Post, Watt thanked association members for their trust: “It’s a big job and there’s a lot of work to do and challenges ahead, but really it’s about the members and making sure I do the best by them”.

“Frontline safety will always be a priority, but another priority is addressing the cost of living crisis. Our members are really feeling it, and they put their hearts and lives on the line everyday. It’s important they’re recognised for what they do,” he said.

In an exclusive exit interview with The Post, Cahill looked back at his nine-year tenure with fondness, but acknowledged it was the “right time” for change - both personally and for the organisation.

First elected in 2016, Cahill has served three three-year terms as Police Association president, previously working as a detective inspector in central Auckland.

“I was really lucky with my career, working on some of New Zealand’s biggest drug cases, some significant homicide investigations. But throughout that, I saw the need for officers to be looked after in a way they weren’t,” Cahill said.

And certainly, Cahill has been a vocal advocate for better protection of officers’ mental health throughout his presidency, both during the churn of daily policing and in response to particularly traumatic events.

“When I first arrived at Christchurch police station [after the mosque shootings], no-one was talking. They were in shock. I met the first group of officers on the scene and they just had this look in their eyes. I pushed strongly to get psychologists in front of people immediately, and I think that was critical,” he said.

But, work to address the wellbeing of police officers was only just beginning, Cahill urged: “All frontline officers should be seeing a psychologist once or twice a year”.

In the association’s biannual survey, 54% of members had identified mental health as a serious issue, he said.

“For too long, we’ve known about the problem but we haven’t addressed it in a meaningful or sustained way. We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and if police don't take proactive steps to get ahead of this issue, we risk a full-scale collision with it.”

Cahill also issued a stark warning about the country’s economy and what that meant for policing and recruitment.

“New Zealand must find new industries to create jobs and a future for our young people. We cannot continue to lose our best and brightest overseas, nor allow those who remain to feel unvalued and disenfranchised. These conditions breed crime, and worse, division,” he said.

Without competitive pay, and with a “massive bubble of officers due to retire soon”, police needed to urgently increase their numbers.

While the first six years of Cahill’s presidency “flew by”, some of the hardest moments came later on.

“The latest pay round was very, very hard. Some of the social media messaging from our own members was really quite tough. I don’t think I have the gas in the tank to do that again,” he said.

He hoped his successor would be able to find ways to “tame the tiger that is social media”.

Under Cahill, the association also evolved internally: “When I came into the role, there were no females on the board. Now 40% of our board is female, which I think is a real improvement,” he said.

After 40 years of policing, Cahill is now 60 and planning to take a long summer break before deciding what’s next.

“I never really joined with the idea that I was going to be a career cop, I was just at a bit of a loose end. But once I found the Criminal Investigation Branch, after breaking my leg and needing a desk job, I knew I'd found my niche. It’s been a wonderful career,” Cahill said.

Cahill's final message was a word of advice to Watt: “Be yourself. Be honest and authentic. You won’t please everyone, and that’s fine.

“And take a week of leave before you start - once you start, you won’t stop.”