Why NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb needs to consider retirement
Scotching suggestions she might be about to retire, Karen Webb says she’s not going anywhere. The reality is, it’s time to think about it, writes JOSH HANRAHAN.
Opinion
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Over the weekend I wrote a story about some senior openings across the NSW Police Force that are set to present themselves in the coming months.
At least, that was intended to be the focus of the piece.
Instead, it was the suggestion Commissioner Karen Webb could retire this year that caught everyone’s attention.
Sources in both policing and political circles have suggested that possibility, but NSW’s first female top cop has since denied it, telling 2GB’s Mark Levy on Monday morning: “I’m not going anywhere.”
To be fair to her, even if she is planning on retiring, what else can she say?
But the reality is, Commissioner Webb should very much be considering her future. It is time for a fresh start.
Her time in the top job has seen some successes, including in the past 12 months securing a deal to pay recruits at the Goulburn Academy – which has recently resulted in the largest ever graduation class – and a pay rise for the force.
They are great wins of which she should be proud and which have quietened her detractors.
And so, after she fills the senior openings at deputy and assistant commissioner level, and can enjoy some clean air without any controversy, she should take an opportunity to sail off into retirement.
The reality is the police force, and the public, needs a change of face and a change of voice.
Commissioner Webb’s decision making has landed her in trouble since before she was ever sworn in, when she called up Deputy Commissioner Mick Willing – who had she had beaten for the commissioner’s role – and told him he was sacked.
It was a decision that upset many in the force, who believed it was not the right way to treat a long-time servant of the state.
Soon after Mr Willing was gone Commissioner Webb took her first step to creating the police media unit circus that has resulted in countless negative headlines over the past three years.
Her decision to move on Grant Williams, an experienced media man who understood both the police and news industry, left her without a wise head to guide her through the difficult times that were to come.
Since Williams’s departure there have now been six other advisers.
While there have been a lot of media chiefs, there have been even more headline-making sagas.
It began in 2022 with an international women’s day appearance at a Maserati dealership linked to her husband, on a day when her officers across the state were rescuing people from floodwaters.
The next year she came under fire for the decision of the police media unit – and in particular her newly-hired media adviser – to call the fatal tasering of Cooma great-grandmother Clare Nowland simply an “interaction”.
Last year she came under criticism for taking a back seat at a press conference about the arrest of police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon over the alleged double murder of two men in Paddington.
A few months later came the ongoing saga about using taxpayers money to buy gin from Hope Estate, run by her friend Michael Hope, as gifts for dignitaries and police.
This week eyebrows were raised at Commissioner Webb being on holidays amid the swarm of anti-Semitic attacks, before suddenly returning to work after the firebombing of a Maroubra childcare centre on Monday night.
While in my opinion the reaction to some of the scandals she has had to answer have been over the top, there is one issue that continues to be Commissioner Webb’s biggest concern.
Despite repeatedly changing spin doctors, her media presence has never improved.
Every time she fronts up to the media, whether it be a press conference streamed on TV or a radio interview, she leaves many within the force disheartened.
It may sound ridiculous to Commissioner Webb, but if she is unaware of the impact it has had on the 16,000 cops under her, she is living under a rock.
Despite all the above, and what the commissioner probably thinks, most cops you speak to do not talk poorly of her. Instead they say she is a nice woman and acknowledge she has done plenty of good for the force.
They say they hate to see the way she is treated by the public and media, but realise that is just how it will be while she is the top cop.
It is for that reason, Commissioner Webb should pick a time – when she is not dealing with a scandal – to call an end to an impressive and trailblazing career of more than four decades, and go out on her terms.
Before it takes too much of a toll on the rest of the force.
Josh Hanrahan is The Daily Telegraph’s chief reporter
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