Around the country police are finding it harder to protect the public. Data compiled by the ABC has shone a light on the vast number of unfilled roles and a surge in officers taking sick leave. It's driving police out of the force and advocates say something must change.
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00:00In an emergency, you'd want police to respond quickly, but across Australia that's becoming
00:09more and more difficult.
00:12Every station across the country, there's vacancies or officers off sick.
00:16It's the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years of policing.
00:19Data collected by the ABC shows there are more than 4,500 police officer vacancies nationally.
00:25The shortage is most acute in New South Wales, where 12% of positions are unfilled, and in
00:31the Northern Territory, where 10% are vacant.
00:34Those who are filling the shifts are often overworked and exhausted, sometimes starting
00:38their day with dozens of outstanding jobs.
00:41Ultimately, it's pushing them to leave too.
00:44That means members of the public aren't being protected.
00:46That means members of the public aren't being responded to.
00:49In the NT, the proportion of police calls answered within 20 seconds fell by a third
00:54over recent years.
00:55Part of the problem stems from low recruitment numbers.
00:58In New South Wales, 665 new cadets were trained last year, making up just 4% of the total
01:05force.
01:061,423 officers had left.
01:08In the same year, Western Australia trained 11% of its force.
01:12In Victoria, 747 officers are on sick leave, over 80% of them have a mental injury.
01:19They're being injured at work because they're taking up the slack of the vacancies that
01:23have not been filled and other officers that have been injured.
01:26Victoria Police are refusing to hand out on-the-spot fines in their campaign for better pay and
01:31conditions.
01:33Policing's really, really taxing, really, really hard.
01:36It's a 24-7 industry, 365 days a year.
01:39We need to give our officers who are working hard in a highly emotionally draining environment
01:44downtime.
01:46The Police Federation is advocating for tax benefits like salary-sacrificed mortgages
01:51and the introduction of a blue card to improve access to health care.
01:55It also wants the retirement age lowered to 55.
01:58That gives them hope, it gives them the capacity to keep going.
02:02We don't want to see police officers for a year or two on the scrap heap because we know
02:07that when they get there, they rarely come back.
02:10The NT is trying to improve police retention.
02:13It plans to introduce a bonus of $10,000 for officers who have worked for 10 years, increasing
02:18with the years of service.
02:20We know there are cops doing the job right now who deserve to stay and be rewarded for
02:25their longevity in the force.
02:28All jurisdictions are allowed to recruit police from overseas, but so far only Queensland,
02:33WA and SA have done so.
02:36We were in market in the UK and Ireland and New Zealand before anybody else and we have
02:41more than 2,000 applicants from those police jurisdictions.
02:46Queensland has also hired more than 100 officers from interstate.
02:50It brings different perspectives into our organisation and will only make us a stronger
02:55organisation overall.
02:57But strength in numbers remains a struggle in areas yet to catch up.