Dave Waddell and Andy Holland named new NSW Police northern region and western region commanders
Two highly-experienced and well-regarded senior police, who both had important roles during the Covid-19 pandemic, have beaten crack fields to be named the new commanders for vast areas of the state.
Newcastle
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Two police officers who took on senior roles implementing strategies to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout have been named as new region commanders responsible for a huge chunk of the state.
Dave Waddell, once the Waratah crime manager more than 15 years ago, formally returns to Newcastle to take up the role of northern region commander, where he has been operations manager for the past year after being seconded back from running commands in Sydney.
And Andy Holland will head to Dubbo to take the reins as the new western region commander.
Both have been promoted to assistant commissioner and join the list of the state’s top brass after a significant shake-up by Commissioner Karen Webb in July saw movement across multiple commands.
Both Waddell, with 34 years’ service, and Holland, with 38 years’ service, are widely experienced and long-serving officers who are popular within the state’s rank and file cops and gained extra kudos for roles in the police strategy during the Covid crisis.
Both have worked in metropolitan and regional areas, including where they both will now be based.
Recently, Holland helped with Covid quarantine operations before commanding the police operations centre where he was responsible for all statewide Covid operations.
And among his duties during the pandemic, Waddell was the co-ordinator to the Australian Defence Force development into NSW, working with senior military personnel and health bureaucrats in organising the large-scale rollouts of the vaccines to regional and remote communities.
Waddell also oversaw the response and investigation into the horrific Hunter bus crash last year, where 10 people died and dozens were injured.
Ms Webb announced both appointments on Wednesday.
Waddell takes over from Peter McKenna, who has moved to Sydney to head up the central metropolitan region, and will look after an area from the Central Coast to the Queensland border.
Holland replaces Brett Greentree, now heading up the people and capability command, and is responsible for a vast area of the state from the ranges to the Queensland and South Australian border.
The latest announcements fill almost all of the state’s assistant commissioner ranks, although the position as head of the traffic and highway patrol command has still not been filled.
It comes after Ms Webb moved Rashelle Conroy from running the forensic evidence and technical services command to head up the new health, safety and wellbeing command, and Brett McFadden from highway patrol to south west metropolitan region. Scott Whyte was moved from the police prosecutions and licensing enforcement command to forensic evidence and technical services.
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