Moana Kidd will never forget the kindness of others

Moana Kidd laughed when her friends first suggested she join the police force.

As a woman of colour who’d been working in the Arts, Kidd was more used to attending rallies than patrolling them.

“I found myself at 30, and I had almost no superannuation,” Kidd, now a Senior Constable with Victoria Police, tells Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast. “I was working in the Arts, so it was really unstable [and] I wasn’t earning very much.”

Kidd knew she needed a change – but she never expected her friends to recommend joining the police.

“I laughed at them,” she recalls. “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’.”

But Kidd’s doubts lingered.

“The only people I knew who were police officers, they were six-foot guys. One had an army background. They were very different to who I was,” she says.

Over time, however, Kidd started to see how her diversity made her a better police officer.

She describes herself as having an “intersectional background”.

Her biological father, who has passed away, was Maori.

“He had a lot of intergenerational trauma, [but he’s also from] a very strong, connected family, and I’m really grateful to have some connection to them.”

She was adopted as a child and her father, Greg Kidd, is quadriplegic.

“He is incredibly inspiring … He was the main breadwinner in our house. He is my mentor. He is who I go to for everything,” she says.

“I find that when I share that vulnerability, other people respond in kind.” 

But Kidd also doesn’t want to portray her upbringing through “rose-coloured glasses”.

“I didn’t have a youth that was very straightforward,” she says “I’ve always had to navigate things, my dad’s always had to navigate things … so I just came into the police force and navigated things.”

Kidd insists it was only through “the kindness of others” that she was able to navigate these challenges.

“Every achievement I’ve had has been off the back of the kindness of others,” she says. “The stability I had [as a] child was [because of] the generosity of our landlords, who didn’t constantly up the rent.

“[There’s the] generosity and kindness of my parents and … [then there’s] 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”.

Kidd says this kindness is why she feels comfortable being open and vulnerable as a police officer.

“I find that when I share that vulnerability, other people respond in kind,” she says.

“And then I create a community around me … and that network is what holds me up.”

Kidd also says her upbringing has helped her navigate the police force because she sees life as “complex, confusing”.

“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,” she adds.

“It’s not good enough to just say something should happen, but I’m not going to do anything about it.

“[We also] need to be the ones who stand up and make a space.”