New commander at the helm

Inspector Matt Laurenson, 45, has been in the Police for 23 years and spent seven of those in the CIB where he relished working on homicide investigations.

He says it was the right time to try something else – he became Waitemata North Area Commander, based in Ōrewa, a month ago after working as Acting Area Commander in Waitakere.

Although he grew up mainly in Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay, he says with both parents teaching, he lived in many places from the north to the deep south.

It was only his second time in Auckland, however, when he moved there in 1999 as a young constable. The first had been to attend a Warriors game.

Matt and his family – wife Anne and young daughter Mila – are living on the North Shore at the moment, but were on the Hibiscus Coast for seven years. He says he is pretty keen to move back to the Coast, “if Anne agrees”.

His Waitemata North patch includes the Hibiscus Coast and Rodney, up to Mangawhai, which he says he is finding refreshing after his time in the city, with different issues to the fore in the rural parts.

With his feet newly under the desk vacated by Inspector Mark Fergus, Matt is making contacts with local organisations and iwi as a priority. So far, he has noted that the business community, iwi and local politicians are approachable and provide good feedback.

Matt says the 105 police across the region are sufficient for the job at hand.

This will be bolstered by five new recruits, most of them locals, who are starting this week.

Matt says he does not expect Waitemata North will lose many Police due to the Covid-19 mandate, which requires them to be fully vaccinated by the start of this week.

“Initially the numbers reluctant to be vaccinated were a bit scary, but as time has gone on more have got the jabs,” he says.

One of Matt’s early tasks washeading up an incident management team to deal with Omicron planning, staffing and logistics.

He says it’s a process Police are familiar with after lockdowns and this time, under the red setting, they have had an opportunity to “get in front of Omicron before it hits the community”.

The plans include ensuring there is cover should Omicron put members of the team into isolation. This means creating bubbles, and ramping up the wearing of PPE within the station and on operations.