“When I joined the police in 1989 in Gilgandra, I didn’t even have a computer in the station,” Mr Grant said.

“Now we have apps on iPhones.”

Mr Grant was on hand to welcome more than 100 new officers to the NSW Police Force at a ceremony last week, and promised to continue to improve the officer’s ability to do their job.

“There’s no greater privilege than to serve your community and there’s no greater honour than to do it as a NSW Police Officer,” Mr Grant said.

“I made a pledge to them that we would look after them and give them the power and the resources they need.”

“My job is to look after them so they can look after us.”

That job includes providing the state’s officers with the latest technology to enable them to be more mobile, as well as constantly reviewing police powers, and ensuring the judicial system “properly holds people to account for the matters that police bring before the court”.

Mr Grant, a former police inspector, acted as the Reviewing Officer at the ceremony on Thursday, April 30, inspecting the 109 new recruits, including four new probationary constables for Orana Local Area Command.

Twenty-six years and three days after coming off the parade ground himself, Mr Grant said it was “a bit surreal to be back there as minister”.

Mr Grant took the opportunity to pass a few words of advice onto the new recruits.

“I told them to be true to that oath of office and that’s the best guiding principle on how to do their job,” he said.

“I told them that they’d see the very best and the very worst in people. 

“They would need to be empathetic, compassionate, forthright and all those qualities would need to be on daily display given the diversity of challenges they would face.”