New polling shows a quarter of New Zealanders have little or no trust in police

Source: Radio New Zealand

A quarter of New Zealanders say they have little or no trust in the police, new polling shows, but most people’s positions were not rattled by the recent Jevon McSkimming scandals.

Police conduct has recently been in the spotlight following an IPCA report that found serious misconduct at the highest levels.

Former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming also pleaded guilty late last year to three representative charges of possessing objectionable publications, namely child sexual exploitation and bestiality material.

The latest RNZ-Reid Research poll, conducted from 15-22 January, asked New Zealanders how much trust they had in the police to do the right thing, and whether recent scandals involving McSkimming changed their level of trust.

A quarter of New Zealanders have little or no trust; 70 percent have at least a fair amount

About a fifth of respondents – 20.7 percent – said they had a lot of trust in police, while more than half – 50.5 percent – said they had a fair amount of trust.

Just over 20 percent said they had “not much” trust and a further 5.7 percent said they had no trust at all. Three percent said they did not know.

Trust was lowest among the most left-leaning voters: 48.2 percent of Te Pāti Māori supporters said they had little or no trust, along with 44.1 percent of Green supporters.

Among Labour voters, 28.2 percent either said they had either no trust or “not much”.

Looking at the coalition supporters, a sizeable 36 percent of New Zealand First voters said they had little or no trust in the police.

That compared to just 12.4 percent of National supporters and 18 percent of ACT supporters.

How did the McSkimming scandals impact that trust?

Voters were also asked whether the recent scandals involving McSkimming changed their level of trust in the police.

More than half of respondents – 51.3 percent – said the scandals had not knocked their trust.

That compared to 36.1 percent of voters who said they had.

Ten-point-four percent said they did not know, while 2.2 percent said their trust had increased following the scandals.

“Not everyone in society is going to support or like the police” – Police Minister

Police Minister Mark Mitchell said he was really happy to hear the McSkimming scandals had not shifted the dial significantly when it came to people’s trust levels.

“I said from day one, and I think the public actually came to this place themselves as they recognised the behavior was contained within a very small group of individuals and was not reflective of the overall values of our New Zealand police force.”

Asked about a quarter of New Zealanders having little or no trust in police, Mitchell said the police had to continually look for improvement, but not everybody was going to support or like the police as “often they may be offending”.

Te Pāti Māori co-leaders were unsurprised their voters had the lowest trust levels, and said various reports also reflected low trust levels in the police, especially for Māori communities.

“We are over monitored, we are over arrested, we are put in prison five times more than non-Māori for the same crime,” co-leader Rawiri Waititi said.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said people’s trust had also been diminished by shootings in Taranaki and the lack of “real independent reviews” after the fact.

She said politicians from all parties needed to show leadership and propose transformational change in the justice space.

Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson said the McSkimming scandals highlighted a problem which stretched beyond “just one person and one police officer”.

“There has long been an acknowledgement of systemic rot across departments, including police, especially when it comes to survivors of violence and abuse.”

But Labour’s Chris Hipkins said he did not believe the case reflected the police as a whole.

“The police leadership let down not just the New Zealand public, but actually all of the serving police officers who had the credibility of the New Zealand Police tested through that.”

Police under scrutiny

In November last year, a scathing report by the police watchdog found serious misconduct at the highest levels of police – including former Commissioner Andrew Coster – over how Police responded to accusations of sexual offending by former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

McSkimming resigned as the country’s second most powerful cop in May amid separate investigations by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and Police.

In response to the report, top government ministers said the public needed to have trust in the police.

The new Commissioner Richard Chambers said trust and confidence were an “absolute priority” given the events.

Chambers told RNZ he was pleased there had not been a significant shift in the support for police and the work they did following the scandals.

“I always had confidence in my people. They just get on with the job.

“Kiwis appreciate that the events of late last year, was an isolated and small group of people.”

Chambers had set a goal of reaching 80 percent trust in the police, and had brought in audits to help identify any behaviour that fell short not only of his expectations but that of the public.

“We do have a tough job, and unfortunately, from time to time, people do let us down.”

Asked whether more work needed to be done in regards to trust in the police by Māori, Chambers said there was “a lot of work to do across all communities”.

“There’s always going to be some communities that have have less trust and confidence, or more trust and confidence in policing. That isn’t new.

“None of that comes as a surprise – it just motivates me and my team more to work really hard.”

This poll of 1000 people was conducted by Reid Research, using quota sampling and weighting to ensure representative cross section by age, gender and geography. The poll was conducted through online interviews between 15-22 January 2026 and has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent at a 95 percent confidence level.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand