Police mental health boost
RAFT OF INITIATIVES TO KEEP OUR OFFICERS SAFE
FUNDING for mental health and wellbeing programs for Tasmanian police officers and other emergency services will be doubled in an acknowledgment of how susceptible frontline workers are to psychological injury.
Premier Peter Gutwein announced at the Police Association of Tasmania conference in Hobart on Thursday morning that a further $1.5m will be invested in the area each year — taking the total annual commitment to $3m.
The new investment will start from April and will fund an additional clinical psychologist in the state’s North and North-West, and four more
wellbeing support officers statewide, an education and training officer and an organisational psychologist.
Mr Gutwein also announced that from July 1, police officers performing security duties at the Burnie courts will be replaced with security contractors.
Police Association of Tasmania president Colin Riley welcomed the news, saying it would make a big difference to those on the frontline.
“It puts our members back on the street where they should always be, and also increased funding for wellbeing will go to the heart of making sure our officers are safe and they go home to their families uninjured,’’ he said. In opening
the conference, Mr Riley outlined sobering statistics that showed the extent of the mental health problem among emergency services.
He said of the 1336 fulltime equivalent staff, 112 were on open workers compensation claims, equalling 8.4 per cent of the workforce.
Mr Riley said 49 of those were for psychological injury, 37 were fully incapacitated and of those, 31 of which were for psychological injury.
He said nine members in the last 19 months have had significant workers compensation payouts while he was aware of six members who had attempted to take their own lives in the past 4 ½ years.
“The problem has been
present in police for a long time,” Mr Riley said.
“I think more recently it’s become far more transparent and members are more prepared to put their hands up.”
Mr Riley also called for mandatory psychological assessments for new members to quickly identify and address mental health issues.
Mr Gutwein said serving police saw the best and worst of the community.
“They put themselves in harm’s way, they have a very stressful role,’’ he said.
“We expect them to turn up at accidents, we expect them to deal with some of the most horrific sets of circumstances that any human being would need to deal with, and it’s important that we support them.”
Police Commissioner Darren Hine welcomed the increase in funding.
“Early recognition and intervention measures are our absolute priority in ensuring our members’ mental health,’’ he said.
Mr Hine said a wellbeing unit was created in 2019 and new policies for fatigue management and for relief for country police stations were being worked on.
The conference was also attended by Police Minister Mark Shelton, Opposition Leader Rebecca White, Labor’s police, fire and emergency management spokeswoman Jen Butler.
CITY motorists are paying up to 30c a litre more for fuel than those in some regional areas, with two new price comparison tools exposing the outlets charging the most.
A Mercury analysis on Thursday through the state government’s free FuelCheck TAS app found unleaded prices ranged from 119.9c a litre to 149.9c a litre, excluding outlets on the state’s remote islands.
For diesel, the cheapest price was 119.9c a litre and most expensive 148.1c a litre.
The state government last September introduced mandatory real-time fuel price reporting, so fuel retailers were required to update prices in real time, providing transparency for consumers.
Last month RACT released its own free price comparison app, Fuel Saver.
RACT chief customer experience officer Stacey Pennicott said mandatory real-time price reporting, in addition to the two apps, was having an impact to stamp out overpriced fuel.
Ms Pennicott said Tasmanians had not been overcharged for fuel during December and January, indicating the changes were working. “In the few weeks since we’ve launched to our members, we’ve been overwhelmed with the many thousands of downloads achieved. We anticipate this figure will soon be in excess of the almost 10,000 people who originally signed the RACT petition calling for real time fuel pricing, which is a fantastic result,” Ms Pennicott said.
“We know that there are big discrepancies sometimes between prices in urban and regional areas.
“The best way to show retailers that you’re not going to put up with huge variations in fuel prices is to download the Fuel Saver app, vote with your feet and support retailers that are offering the best price.”
It’s long been the case in Tasmania that cheaper fuel can be found at smaller service stations outside the city.
The RACT believes there is no reason country service stations should be able to offer cheaper fuel, other than marketing decisions by individual operators. The independently owned Sandfly General Store reported one of the lowest fuel rates at 123.9c a litre for unleaded 91 and diesel, and 135.9c a litre for premium 95.
Store employee Chloe Hodgson said it was known for its cheap fuel long before the pandemic. She has worked there for eight years and said cheap takeaway food and petrol kept the regulars coming back. “We’re always helping out with our community and our locals — prices closer to Hobart are very expensive,” Ms Hodgson said.
“We’ve got a lot of loyal customers and a lot of people thanking us for keeping our prices down and helping them out, they’re very grateful.”
South Arm General Store owner Jacqui Stevens, who endeavours to keep her prices low, said she generally added 6c per litre to the wholesale price of fuel. Ms Stevens said she wanted to help out locals by offering the most affordable fuel. “It’s doing the right thing by our local community really, that’s our primary reason,” she said.
The Murdunna Roadhouse is one of a number of service stations in the Tasman and Sorell regions known for offering cheaper fuel.
Owner Shannon Umgeher said his pricing strategy was aimed at attracting customers to shop at the roadhouse, rather than maximising profits on fuel. “We are more into bringing customers in with the cheaper rate, getting them into the shop, and they buy our food and drinks,” he said.
Unmanned 24-hour fuel stations in shipping containers are also appearing around regional Tasmania. However Ms Pennicott said while unmanned refuelling points provided more options, they were no replacement for traditional service stations.