Former NSW top cop turned international police chief Nick Kaldas awarded AO

‘I’m just an ordinary man who’s done some good things,’ says Nick Kaldas, of a career investigating assassinations, mass shootings and heading the royal commission into veteran suicide.

Former NSW deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas in Abu Dhabi.

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Nick Kaldas describes himself as “an ordinary man who’s done some good things”.

And yet one look at the achievements of the Egyptian-born former police officer tell a story that’s far from ordinary.

From working his way up the NSW Police Force from the Homicide Squad to deputy commissioner, to heading up investigations around the globe into high-profile assassinations, mass shootings and the use of chemical weapons, Mr Kaldas has left his mark on communities across the world.

Yet one of his greatest achievements wasn’t serving as the deputy chief police adviser for the coalition forces in Iraq, nor was it being appointed Assistant Commander in Chief of the Abu Dhabi Police Force earlier this year, but something much closer to home.

“(Heading up) the royal commission into military suicide was a nationally significant thing, I hope, and I feel we did make a difference, and will have made a difference, to thousands of people’s lives by our effort, and I’m quite proud of the work we did, dreadfully sad as it was,” he said.

Serving as the chair of the royal commission, which handed down its findings last year, was monumental for Mr Kaldas, not only because of the criticality of the job but the fact he would have been one of the first non-English speaking chairs of a royal commission ever appointed.

“I’m probably the first person from a non-English speaking background to head up a national royal commission without being a lawyer or a judge, which is traditionally where heads of commissions are drawn from,” he said.

“But I look back on what I’ve achieved and, really, I’m a very ordinary man who achieved some good things, and I hope that inspires and resonates with kids coming up now to be able say: ‘Look, if he’s done it, I can do it.’

“There is no glass ceiling.”

Mr Kaldas said he could not have imagined achieving what he had, or being made an Officer for the Order of Australia, when he and his family migrated from Egypt in the late 1960s.

“I didn’t in my wildest dreams think I’d achieve all these things that I did. I’m very proud, and very humbled actually, to receive this reward,” he said.

“I see it as recognition not just of me but perhaps of the migrant community, generally, in particular my people from my background, the Egyptians and the Coptic Orthodox community.”

Despite having been involved in investigating devastating events from a vast array of homicides domestically to the Christchurch massacre to the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, Mr Kaldas said he remained an optimist

“There’s not a lot that worries me,” he said. “I think I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen to good ­people, and I’ve seen a lot of bad situations, but I am very optimistic about Australia and our future.”

Despite this, he said he hoped conflicts overseas, such as that occurring in Gaza and Israel, did not turn Australians against each other. “What I do worry about a little bit is that the impact of events and dreadful situations overseas, it takes such a toll on Australians to a point where we begin to develop enemies within the country; and I hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.

“I just hope people can have very strong feelings about what’s happening overseas, and I understand that completely, I do too, but it should not affect how we feel about each other in Australia.”