Tonga's new Police Commander, New Zealander Chris Kelley, says the skills and experience from Australia and New Zealand will be vital in rebuilding the force.
Mr Kelley began his planned three-year stint as the Tonga commander late last month.
He sees his role as providing leadership in a force that was widely criticised for its failure to cope with the riot in Nuku'alofa in November 2006.
The appointment has come as part a tripartite agreement with New Zealand, Australia and Tonga with an aim of institutional restrengthening and development of the force.
He says this will involve adapting policing practices from the metropolitan countries to the Tonga environment.
"The way we intend to go about it is to clearly get support and some resourcing from Australia and New Zealand. In other words, we are not about to re-invent the wheel because clearly a whole range of policies and procedures and things like that have already been developed and all we need to do is adapt them to Tongan processes and the Tongan environment, and that will help."
Chris Kelley
