THERE’S no policing without the community, according to Canberra’s new chief police officer, Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan, who wants to reinforce that ACT Policing is there for the community. 

“Sometimes we lose that. It’s not done intentionally, it’s done because we’re so bloody busy that we just lose the focus on what we joined for,” says Neil, who started out in community policing in 1984.

“Community policing is based on working with the community to achieve outcomes and we don’t police without the consent of the community.” 

Inspired by some of his friends’ dads who were cops, Neil joined the Australian Federal Police just after high school, which saw him move from Sydney to Canberra to work for ACT Policing.

He’s been in Canberra since, working in a variety of ACT Policing areas such as the diplomatic protection unit, the accident investigation squad, the criminal investigations branch, and the sexual assault and child abuse team. 

He did that for about 16 years and then hit a crossroads with his career. 

“I wasn’t feeling as if I was progressing and I needed a different challenge so I went and [worked for the Australian Taxation Office] for a few years and learnt some really good skills,” says Neil, who worked in fraud control planning. 

He says it was heavily risk-management based, which put him in a position where he could work in leadership roles when he returned to the AFP. 

Since returning to the AFP in early 2003, Neil’s worked in portfolios such as protection, high-tech crime, counter terrorism and organised crime, before being promoted deputy commissioner in April 2018 where he ran national operations for the AFP. 

Now, though, he’s back in community policing, a place where he says he had the most fun over his policing career. 

“You actually serve the community and you actually do achieve great outcomes,” he says.

While Neil says he’s inherited a police force that is going really well, he has a few things he’d like to focus on, including mental health, recidivism and family violence. 

“My job as the chief police officer will be that if police officers need services to assist them with their physical and mental wellbeing then we get to them in a timely fashion, that we don’t allow red tape to get in the way,” he says. 

“If you have police that are happier and don’t have baggage and they’ve got good physical fitness, their interactions with the public are going to be better and ultimately that will mean a better outcome for the ACT community.”

Being in policing can be tough, says Neil, who led the counter-terrorism area in the height of ISIS, but has also experienced the tough jobs on a community level.

“I understand some of the challenges that the troops are going through,” he says. 

“I’ve been through some of the challenges they have. I’ve attended fatal car accidents, I’ve had to pass death messages to people, I’ve had to be involved in young kids dying, I’ve been to domestic-violence situations. I understand some of the challenges, not all of them, [but] I think that puts me in a better position to advocate for change if I need to and advocate for their better outcomes.”

For Neil, he gets through the hard days by exercising and connecting back with the community. 

“You’ve got to do something for your physical health but you’ve also got to try and get back to normal as soon as you can,” he says.

“I did a really stressful press conference a while back and that night I just went back and did my normal activity, which was sitting on a disciplinary tribunal for one of the local sporting facilities around here, connecting back with something outside of law enforcement.”  

Another focus for Neil is working with the community on recidivist offending, particularly with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. 

“I’ve already met with a couple of community elders and I’m meeting with some more,” he says.

“It’s important that whatever we try to change with recidivism [that] it is led by the community and the other directorates. It’s not just a policing issue, it’s something we need to work across the whole community with. 

“There already are some really good recidivist programs in place but I think we need to really turbo charge those.”

And then, there’s family violence. 

“I want to work with the other directorates on better outcomes for the victims of those and the families and the kids particularly that are subjected to that sort of stuff,” he says. 

Overall, Neil’s looking forward to serving the ACT community as best as he can, and he wants to try to have a bit of fun along the way. 

“Policing is a serious business but in life, life’s too short, you’ve got to have a bit of fun,” he says.