Too few cops on the beat to deal with daily demand of incidents

Tasmanian police officers are going down like flies from overwork and the stress created by too many demands, Colin Riley calls for some compassion

SAFEGUARDS designed to protect police from harm and overwork fall short of doing so.

Police Commissioner Darren Hine made the point last week that safeguards are in place to protect officers (Talking Point, February 18).

But from an association perspective, those safeguards are inadequate.

Mr Hine accepted policing can be detrimental to officers’ wellbeing and gave examples of negative aspects. He quoted the oath taken by members — reflecting their duty to protect the community, which places responsibilities on them over and above what most other Tasmanian employees of any workplace ever experience.

Mr Hine also acknowledged police take on non-core work as required because of a duty to assist anyone in distress.

To this extent, it appears Tasmania Police as an employer is aware of the pressures of daily work and an increasing workload from other agencies imposed on members. This is where the problem lies.

Mr Hine clearly outlined Tasmania Police’s program and methodology for fixing its broken people. But it is the Association’s position — supported by work, health and safety law — that Tasmania Police has a duty to protect the health and safety of its people before they are negatively impacted. Our position is the Commissioner’s duty under the Work Health and Safety Act to protect our members is as solemn as our own members’ oath to protect the community.

Furthermore, the association maintains both can be achieved concurrently.

As we now stand in 2021, items listed by Mr Hine such as the Fatigue Management and Country Station Relief Policies have not materialised as yet — therefore they have not as yet provided any benefit to our members.

Another critical issue is staffing levels in response areas to which Tasmania Police has committed to instituting agreed minimum levels commencing in July this year, with full implementation in July, 2022.

But these will address only a part of the greater problem of a lack of staff, which has existed for years.

As an association, our members want to assist anyone in distress. The issue is Tasmania Police management providing realistic staffing to achieve this outcome.

Alternatively, other government agencies fulfil their own obligations without calling on our members.

By that I mean Child Safety Services, Tasmania Ambulance Service when ramping occurs and Mental Health Services.

By law, Tasmania Police should be proactive in identifying and controlling risks, yet the association has had to fight for years to achieve health and safety improvements such as a reliable incident response model and risk assessments for vehicles — basic health and safety matters that should have been initiated by the employer. We have also been providing solutions for the implementation of safeguards to protect our members from harm and overwork.

Some of these and their origins include:

Agreed minimum safe staffing levels (late 2019)

Implementation of a Country Station Relief Policy (February 2018)

A Fatigue Management Policy (February 2019)

More effective Magistrate court safety measures Statewide (June 2017)

Indicators of member wellbeing (January 2020)

Allowing first responders access to “long arms” to deal with active armed offender threats (April 2019)

Decentralisation of non-first responder positions out of the Southern region to the NorthWest and North to allow members to manage their own wellbeing in those regions (November 2019)

Workplace Health & Safety reporting of hazards and health and safety representative structures are not functioning adequately (August 2019)

Seeking a University of Tasmania research thesis to map the workload of members to understand how we supplement other agency workloads (January 2020)

The Police Association appreciates the government’s $3 million per year investment in the Wellbeing Programs for emergency services as it will benefit our members.

We represent 99.18 per cent of the 1336 officers and last calendar year we had 747 member referrals for assistance. We will continue our campaign to make our members’ workplace safer.