Future Women podcast, Episode Moana Kidd transcript

Intro: Sally Spicer

Too Much is a podcast series proudly supported by Victoria Police, who are looking for more women to join their ranks. To explore a career with Victoria Police, visit the link in the show notes or head to police.vic.gov.au.

Snippet: Moana Kidd

What they’re trying to say is, don’t be vulnerable. What they're trying to say is, you, if you stand out, you can be a target. But I am pretty happy to go out and to say, no, this is who I am, and this is where I'm from.

Intro: Helen McCabe

Ask any woman, and she’ll tell you about a time she was “too something”. At work, women are suffocated by stereotypes about who we should be and how we should behave.

In Too Much, I speak with extraordinary women who dared to defy these suffocating stereotypes, and forged their own path.

Moana Kidd never imagined she’d be a Senior Constable with Victoria Police. As a woman of colour who’d been working in the arts, she was used to attending rallies - not patrolling them. But when an unexpected career shift led her to look for new work - she decided to become the change she wanted to see. Today, Moana joins me to explore how her life shaped her career - and how she rose through the ranks despite being “too open”.

Helen McCabe

Moana thank you so much for joining Too Much. Now, I want to start with the fact that you never, ever expected to join the police. And actually sitting here, looking at you right now, you don't really look like a typical police person. How did it happen?

Moana Kidd

If you had met me when I was young, you would never have been like, “Oh, she's going to join the police.” No way.

So I ended up, I worked in the arts, I worked in science, I worked through farms, I did all of this very random stuff. And I found myself at about 30, and I had almost no superannuation. I wasn't earning very much. I was working in the art so it was really unstable, and I was complaining about it a lot with some of my ex's friends, and they were in the police force, and they suggested it, and they were like, “You should join the police.”

And I laughed at them. I was like, “Look at me.” And they're like, “no, look at you. You're a mature age female with a degree from a diverse background, lots of life experience, you're a shoe in.” And it turns out that they were pretty right. I looked into it, and I went through all the tests, and here I am.

Helen McCabe

Well, you absolutely would be a shoe in. I've now spent a bit of time working with various people from various police forces around Australia, and I know how active they are in finding women like you.

Tell me the early days then. So anyone listening to this is wondering, all right. Moana, great. I’ve got rubbish super as well, and I used to be an activist, so sell it to me. How did you, how did you find those early days? Because I imagine it was a bit of a shock to the system.

Moana Kidd

It was and it wasn't. I think I had quite low expectations going in, because when I applied, the only people I knew who were police officers, they were, you know, six foot guys. One had an army background. They were very different to who I was. And I had read a lot about, you see in the news, a lot in the media, stuff that isn't very pro-culture inside the police.

So at first, I had quite low expectations going in. I thought it would be quite difficult culturally for me, and there was a little but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I have had quite a good experience, and that's not to discount anyone who has struggled, but I have had a very nice experience going through Victoria Police. I was very lucky to be put into stations with lots of women.

I had women as leaders. I had women as mentors. I had some amazing allies who are men, who are mentors as well, and they have helped me through that process.

I've had to vent a bit about adjusting to some of the cultural things. And that’s where, we had a bit of a culture which was the Grey Man, which was don’t be too good, don’t be too bad, just slide on through in the middle.

And I grew up in a culture where you’re meant to achieve, meant to push, meant to try to be the best you can be.

And in the Academy, that was difficult because I would ask questions and I would argue and I would tell people my opinion about things, and I would tell people about my life experiences, and that was quite challenging for some of the old school.

Helen

I want to come back to the Grey Man, but I do want to understand before get there, you knew it was going to be challenging, you went in there thinking “this is going to be tough on me.”

What motivated you to take the decision to actively pursue something that you thought you as a diverse female candidate could face pretty strong opposition.

Moana Kidd

I think that in order to have the police force I would like to see in our community, I need to be one of the ones who are in there. It's not good enough to just say something should happen, but I'm not going to do anything about it. It's something where I think we need to be the ones who stand up and make a space.

Part of what I do in my role now is I'm in a women of colour network, employee network within Victoria Police. And part of that is to stand and to make a space to say, I'm here. You can be here too. You can make the police force you want to see. And I think that we need to have a diverse police force in order to appropriately police the community that we serve.

Helen McCabe

So, um, let’s talk about that Grey Man theory. How’s that going today, now that you are in the middle of the mix, agitating against that general concept. Does it still exist, since those culture can be engrained? Or are you breaking it down.

Moana Kidd

I think we're a really big organisation. You’ll have pockets where these things still exist. You can't pretend that the whole organisation will just move as one, because we're a really diverse police force, and we work in all different environments.

Those who are under a lot more pressure probably do hold on to some of those old-fashioned cultural working methods, because some of those people will think that that's what protects you, to be all homogenous, all as one, moving as one, thinking as one, obeying, not questioning.

That theory of not questioning it does have a role. It is important to follow the guidance, guidance and leadership of those who are already experienced and who those who know how to do emergency management you need to learn. But there's a, there's a balance.

There's a balance to be struck between making sure that you're acting in accordance with policy, procedure and legislation and making sure that you're also standing up for the rights of those who are around you, as well your colleagues and the people in the community. I am pretty happy to go out and to say, “No, this is who I am, and this is where I'm from”, and I have a really big network in Victoria Police now, and I can rely on all of them, so I've been able to navigate difficult situations, relying on the community that I've built around me.

Helen McCabe

Fantastic. Now our theme today is “too open”, and I think you've already expressed that beautifully. But how, how did you become to always be upfront about things you're concerned about?

Moana Kidd

So my background is an intersectional, it's got intersectionality issues in my life. So I was adopted when I was a child, and I was adopted by my two amazing adoptive parents and my father is quadriplegic, so he has his disability, which is definitely not holding him back at all, but that's really upfront.

So even as a child, people would talk to me first. They would talk over him, assuming that he couldn't hear because he couldn't walk. So navigating through the world with something that's right up front is not something that was unusual to me and is not something that is scary to me. So he is, like, incredibly inspiring. He has worked.

He was the main breadwinner in our house. He is my mentor. He is who I go to for everything. He initiated peer to peer rehabilitation through the Talbot when he was working for AQA, the Australian Quadriplegic Associate. So that's the world I grew up in, and so that's the personality I've taken with me through my life.

So the things that I am challenged by are not even half of what he's had to experience. So how can I be that scared of standing up when he can move through the world? Does that make sense?

Helen McCabe

Yes. Moana, but I need to know what his name is.

Moana Kidd

Greg. My dad's Gregory. Yes, my dad's Greg Kidd. He had his accident late 60s, and then he's just grown up, he and then he raised me.

Helen McCabe

When did you come into his life? Or him into yours.

Moana Kidd

I was six months old. I was six months old. We even got an article on the Women's Day, because it was, it was quite, quite a thing, because they, they did allow him to adopt, and there was a lot of pushback.

Yeah, they had to move states. They had to move states to adopt me. Yeah, so I believe Queensland wouldn't let them do it. And so they came down to Victoria, and Victoria let them adopt me. Thankfully.

Helen McCabe

What year was that Moana?

Moana Kidd
That would have been 1983 maybe 1984 early 1984. Yeah.

Helen McCabe

So one of my other things that I've done in my career is be the ambassador and been on the board of Adopt Change. So I have a little bit of knowledge of the adoption laws in this country and, and all of the concerns around it.

But what an inspiring story, and it does go to how you frame everything, doesn't it? It explains a lot about how you see the world. Can you give me some other examples of you being “too open”?

Moana Kidd

It probably was really quite early in the academy days. I remember there was one session, and we were talking about how to deal with protests. And the guy up the front, sort of directly, was like, “Yeah, well, did any of you ever go to protests” trying to, like, diss people who are protesting? I'm like, “yeah, yeah. As a kid, I did”.

And I'm talking like high school I was, I was a child, but at that time, I was exercising my right. I didn't go there to be violent. I wanted to, you know, make an issue heard.

So I stood up for what I believed in at the time. And then I figured out there were other ways to try to get things done. But I had, and I did. And so I said, “Yes, yes, I did. I went to protests”. I'm not scared about policing protests. I think that you need to make sure that things stay stable and the public is kept safe, and you don't want things to get out of hand.

And I was never afraid of the police as when I was growing up, I wasn't afraid of the police when I went to those protests, because I wasn't there. I wasn't throwing things, I wasn't being violent, and I never had a bad experience in that way. So that was probably the first time when I was like, “oh, oh, this isn't considered to be okay, okay”. But I'm not gonna lie.

If I've experienced something, I'll tell you, and I'll tell you what my life experience is.

And then I've also told them about some of my extended family who haven't had the outcomes that I've had, because I'm still connected with my family of origin, which I was adopted away from, and they have had struggles. So those struggles mean that sometimes they are not on the same side as I am.

Helen McCabe

And what in particular are the issues that define your, your birth parents?

Moana Kidd

So my birth mother was just too young when she had me, she was too young my biological father, they did go on and they had more kids. And I'm connected with my brothers and sisters. I have quite a few. I have quite a few from different relationships. So I was, this is tricky.

So when I was conceived, my parents were not married or together. And my biological father, he's passed away now, and now I feel I can connect more with my Maori culture. It was quite difficult when he was still alive. He had a lot of intergenerational trauma. He had what I believe was some substance and violence abuse issues in relation to that, and a lot of it was in the context of how he grew up. So his name was Arthur, but that wasn't his name.

That was the name that the judge gave him, because he couldn't pronounce his actual name, when he was, I believe, a teenager, when he was in children's court. So it was a family that had a lot of things to overcome, and they're a very strong, connected family, and I'm really grateful to have some connection to them, but I also was very grateful to grow up in quite a safe environment that didn't have the instability that they experienced as a result of their intergenerational trauma and issues in that space.

Helen McCabe

I mean, it wouldn't be lost on you that many people who have had the experiences you've had to date would struggle on a number of levels. What do you credit with your ability to frame these challenges in the way that you do all the way through to developing, finding a really fabulous career that has given you such purpose.

Moana Kidd

The kindness of others. So every achievement I've had has been off the back of the kindness of others

The stability I had the child was the generosity of our landlords, who didn't constantly up the rent. They provided me with a stable home for my entire my entire youth. The generosity and kindness of my parents and then people taking a chance on me, people taking a chance on someone who didn't look like them, who didn't have the same background as them, the person who sat on the panel and said, “We'll give you a go” when I joined the Victoria Police, all of those different moments through my life, someone's given me a chance, or someone's taken that little moment to go, “All right, get in there. Get in there. Give it a go”.

And each of those things builds. They each build on each other, and it creates a world where I can take that opportunity, and I can take that extra step. And I think in some ways, that's part of why I am too open. I am too open, because I find that when I share that vulnerability, other people respond in kind, and then I create a community around me in the network, and that network is what holds me up.

So I have had challenges, and I've had challenges in Victoria Police, where I've been navigating a meritocracy that can be really confusing, and it has a very specific language to it, but it's through the generosity of people's time to listen to my concerns or my confusion and help guide me through and the amazing mentors that I've had throughout my time, that's how I got here.

Helen McCabe

Beautiful answer. Now I really want to understand so you're in the police academy and you're seeing stuff that doesn't make sense or doesn't reflect your understanding of your lived experience, and you're going, that sucks. It's got to change. What does Moana Kidd do in those circumstances? I know what Helen McCabe does, and she can get a bit grumpy and cranky. What do you do?

Moana Kidd

So um, unfortunately for my colleagues and my squad mates, I would talk about it, and I would sometimes make us sit over class and have an argument with our ethics teacher, not an argument, but, you know, a heated discussion.

Helen McCabe

Oh good, so you get angry. You actually do get angry. At the moment I'm seeing very measured and controlled.

Moana Kidd

I never really get angry, angry, but I can get heated. I can get heated, which is probably why I ended up in prosecutions. I love an argument sometimes, but I would, I would talk to them about it, and I would be like, “I have lived experience. And this does not sit right. This is not where, where my lived experience says that it is.

And perhaps you are looking at it from a really narrow view because of your experience being only from the position of power”. So challenging the structure of power has always been something I'm pretty happy to have a heated discussion about. Which has sat strangely for some of the rank structure that we have which usually just says “shut up and do what you’re told”, so.

Helen

Well there are times. That is interesting, because I think the vantage point of seniority is quite different from the vantage point of being a recruit or starting out so, and there are things you have to, navigate in life as well.

Do you give Greg a call and go, “you're not gonna believe what happened today. I got really heated.”

Moana Kidd

I have emailed him because he's gone through a lot, and he experienced a lot as well. So there was a time when I felt that the trauma that I'd been exposed to was building up, and I did reach out to him, and I was like, I'm sorry. I've been really quiet, but this is what's happened. And he was amazing.

And he replied back and talked about some of the trauma that he'd experienced vicariously through his role as peer support with some of his people that he was supporting committing suicide and other things like that, where they were self harming.

And so he had that lived experience of being exposed to repeated trauma and I had and even just knowing that someone could hear and understand was enough. And one of the other things I've always been very open about, which has been interesting to navigate, has been that I am very open about my proactive mental health support.

Ever since joining Victoria Police. I've seen psychologists at regular intervals, sometimes different ones, sometimes through our Employee System Program, sometimes privately. I think that it's really important to be proactive in that space and not reactive. I think once you're reactive, it's gone a bit too far.

Helen McCabe

I know a few people who are starting out in their early careers in in policing and reaching out for help from psychologists, is there was a stigma attached to that. And I think there still is a bit of stigma attached from that. And you're obviously bucking that trend too, and being incredibly open about it.

Moana Kidd

Yeah, I don't care about that trend, I think that trend's really unhealthy. I can see why it would be scary if all you've ever done is spoken to someone when it's too late, when you're already in that red emergency stage and you're on the verge of something awful.

Collapse. Break down. If that's the only time you've ever seen or spoken to someone who works in mental health, it would be terrifying, and it would be terrifying for your career.

But if you're otherwise quite healthy, but you're just exposed to a lot of traumatic instances, or you're exposed to just a bulk, a bulk of information and people's lives and the pressure and the workload, if you're proactively addressing that, it's not scary, and it shouldn't be scary, and you should be able to just say, “Oh yeah, no, I've got a psych appointment because I just want to make sure I'm healthy.” It's like going to the doctor.

Helen McCabe

I think, I think in the generationally, there's, it's absolutely there's huge differences. I hear it all the time amongst them, my most junior colleagues or friends. But it's the next levels up that get a bit anxious about it.

Have you had an instance in I mean, because policing is incredibly stressful, have you had any incidents in your career where you've felt that your mental health was at risk, and what did you do about it?

Moana Kidd

So I've had one or two where it sort of was the bucket was getting a bit full. I was at Bourke Street, so I was one of the responding officers. I was working at Melbourne East at the time, so that's the closest station to where that occurred, and I was on shift that afternoon. So that was a really intense experience.

Helen McCabe

So when you say Bourke Street, you're talking about the the guy who drove into pedestrians in the centre of Melbourne and killed six people.

Moana Kidd

Yea. It affected the whole community, and it affected our station, particularly I had colleagues who were present at the time, and I come just after.

That in itself, because we all experienced together, and we all were going through together, and they offered psych support that was manageable. But then later, about six to eight months after that, I went to another incident, and someone drove through a group of people, and that's when I was like, “oh, oh, I need to, I need to work on this”, because my reaction was far greater than the circumstance required.

It was a, don't get me wrong, it was bad circumstance, but my personal reaction was that it sat with me, and that's where I was, like, “I need to see someone and make sure that I know how to bring that reaction down and manage it in my life”. And that worked quite well, because I did.

I saw someone, I went and I just got those tools make sure I was breathing properly, make sure I was grounding myself, all of that really good proactive stuff. And again, I spoke about it. I was like, “Oh, I was at Bourke Street now I'm at this. It's triggered me. I need some I need some time. I need some time to deal with this”.

And the second incident was where my biological father died, and I went to my family of origin for the first time since I was 17.

And then when I came back, I was dealing with high risk, high harm juvenile offending. That's where I was prosecuting, specifically in juvenile sex offending. I went straight back into my list, I went straight back into work after two weeks, and I realised that I had over committed. I over committed, and I had a bit of a crash.

I was I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed, and I did try to manage it internally. I tried to manage it quietly, but in the end, I did end up going to a different workplace for a short period of time just to give myself that space. And then I came back and I'd had that time.

Helen McCabe

Thank you for sharing. I think it's super valuable, and goes to your preparedness to be open. One of the things I want to explore a bit is how your colleagues respond to your life experience, your approach to policing, and the fact that you're prepared to call out situations like, how have you navigated relationships within the organisation.

And do you ever have this thing where you know your colleagues are like, “oh my goodness, Moana, I can't say that in front of Moana, she might kind of like, it might be offensive. I don't quite know what bits that she gets offended by.”

Moana Kidd

I wouldn't say that I get particularly offended. I'll talk to you about it. If I'm like, Hmm, that was off colour. Not sure about that. Yep, they get used to me. They get used to me.

Helen McCabe

They get used to you calling them out.

Moana Kidd

I think my approach can be quite protective, quite self protective, and quite protective of the others in my unit. I've never worked anywhere where I think people would be comfortable doing the wrong thing. I think that they know that I'll just be like, “can't do that. That's not the thing. Why are you doing that?”

When I was preparing to do this podcast, I went and I talked to all of my people from ex Vic Pol employees, current ones. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I'm doing this podcast. Help me, help me figure out how to talk about what I talk about anyway”.

And as I was going through that, I would say things and they're like, “Moana you can't say that!” I'm like, “I think I will. I think I will, because it's authentic and it's the truth”.

And this is my experience. This is my lived experience. I don't try to get myself involved in other people's business. I don't try to unpack them. I don't try to tell people what to do. I just tell them what I'm comfortable with and what I think is the right thing to do. Usually the right thing to do, is that the right thing to do.

And most people have reacted quite well. They haven't responded particularly badly. I've never been ostracised. I have friends from every single unit I've ever worked at, and I see them at random intervals.

I try to build authentic connections, not judgmental ones, not judging what you're doing or why you're doing it, but I might ask you why you're doing it, because it doesn't make sense to me, or I think that it's maybe not the right thing to do.

Helen McCabe

I do think that differentiation about being judgy is a valuable one, because I think it's very easy for us as humans to judge others and feel a bit morally superior when we're doing it. Can I, but I just want to unpack one more thing with you, and that is and I've watched this in all of my various careers and the people that I've been around, you go into life pretty idealistic, and you know what's right and wrong?

University, high school, you pursue the issues of social justice that are interesting to you. You start your career, and I'm applying this to police, right. You start your career, and then you just see grey you know, you see the confusion of humanity.

And as you say, people react differently in different circumstances, and you might think they're appallingly behaved, until you learn about what the circumstances are in their lives and what they're tackling at home.

And I guess I’m going to sounds a bit like I watched too many cop shows and that moment, but life gets pretty confusing in policing. And hence, you have um, centuries of corrupt police officers.

How do you, I am sure you’re thinking about these things as you progress in this career.

How do you um, think about it, and have you seen it and um, I guess how do you stay anchored to your truth?

Moana Kidd

I think that if you come from a diverse background, and you've already seen that life is complex, confusing, and there's no hard right or wrongs for how a person responds to an incident or a situation, then you are not as vulnerable to having that really high level of idealism and the crash that comes after it.

I think that if you come in with an understanding that you are now in control, and you have a level of power that's been granted to you by the state and the community that you understand that you then need to navigate that in the same way that you would want it to be exerted if you were on the other side. So the way I've come into it, I was not particularly idealistic. I didn't come in believing that I would change the world or save the world.

I just wanted to deal with my things to the best of my ability, the things that are within my control to the best of my ability. So the impact that I personally have had on someone's life is not a negative one. I can't change the entire organisation. I can change my bubble, and if I act with authenticity and with integrity and flexibility and work with what I've got, then those around me will also do the same thing.

I believe and I trust that they will also take my vibe and we will all, in our little bubble, do that as we all do that as a group, as an organisation, we'll be better. I was never rose-coloured glasses because my life has never been rosy. My life has not been rosy coloured. I didn't have a childhood that was very straightforward.

I didn't have a youth that was very straightforward. I've always had to navigate things. My dad's always had to navigate things. So I just come into the police force and navigate things. It's the same thing. It's just now you have more power. You have more influence.

Helen McCabe

Tell me what is career success look like for you? What's the Moana plan here, and apart from a decent, healthy superannuation account, which, I think, which is very valid.

Moana Kidd

Very valid, which is good, very valid, not to mention really great leave entitlements. We have great leave.

Helen McCabe

I hear that amazing, and I am jealous of it. I really genuinely am.

Moana Kidd

One of the other things I was too open about is when I did look at a different job. I looked at leaving Victoria Police about a year ago, I was, I just kind of felt like, you know, I can, I can do other things. And I went through and I was interviewing, and I was talking to my colleagues and my supervisor about it. I didn't hide it. I was like,
Yeah, look, I'm looking at this.”

But we have some amazing benefits. We have great leave I know so many people. I have a community, and I was like, do I really want to start from scratch? And I didn't. And then I thought, actually, there is something else I can do here. And I threw myself a bit more into my employee network.

I threw myself a bit more into making sure I've built my networks and supporting the people around me. And then I felt a lot more satisfaction in my role. So career success for me changes as I change. Right now I have kids who are still in school, and my priority right now is making sure that they have a really stable youth.

I want them to have a very stable youth where we're not overwhelmed by financial issues or instability in our work. I want my focus to be balanced between my home and my family and my work, and that's what I have right now. I found a wonderful little spot in order to have that work life balance.

I know that not everyone in Victoria Police has that work life balance. There is a lot of pressures. A lot of areas where you do have to work a lot. I'm in legal services, specialist legal services right now, and that's what's working for me. Different things all work for different people, but that's what works for me.

So my priority at this stage of my career, and this stage my life is diversity. So I want to work here, and then I want to go and work in a different department. I don't want to just try to shoot up. I want to get a good grounding in lots of different things. I joined because there's lots of different things to do. So I want to do that.

Helen McCabe

Moana Kidd, the Victoria Police force is very lucky to have you, and I am certain you are going to just shoot up. Thank you for sharing, and particularly the story about Greg and the various members of your family.

You are not too open. You're about just right from where I sit. Thank you very much for talking to me today.

Moana Kidd

Thank you.

Outro: Sally Spicer

Next time on Too Much. 2024 Australian of the Year, Professor Georgina Long on being too passionate.

Snippet: Georgina Long

I like no-one else, want to smash cancer. That is what I am passionate about.

But I don’t want to hurt people, and I don’t want to create drugs that we think are helping but don’t. but just create a whole heap of toxicity and problems for people.

Outro: Sally Spicer

Too Much is a podcast series proudly supported by Victoria Police, who are looking for more women to join their ranks. To explore a career with Victoria Police, visit the link in the show notes or head to police.vic.gov.au.