Always pays to invest in safety

Allocating funds to ensure the safety of police personnel will benefit all of us, writes Colin Riley

AS Tasmania heads into the autumn of 2022, we can anticipate the state budget and the federal election.

Both will bring spending targets and promises by the Rockliff Liberal government and the competing federal Coalition and Labor parties, particularly in the marginal seats of Braddon, Bass and Lyons.

For the Police Association of Tasmania, we are focused on two issues: the safety of our members, and the safety of the Tasmanian community.

The association is extremely concerned with critical wellbeing issues being experienced by our members in the workplace.

At present, there are 59 fully incapacitated police officers absent from work due to workplace injury from a total of 1401 officers, with 10 per cent of the workforce on open workers’ compensation claims.

There have been some significant advances to assist remediate this situation. In the past two years, there has been the development of a wellbeing unit that can only be described as national best practice and highly regarded by our members as being supportive, responsive and able to assist when a member is about to or becomes unwell.

The government is providing $3m per year for the health and wellbeing program for emergency service personnel and volunteers.

Tasmania Police, the police association and the government have worked collaboratively over the past two years to ensure that mandated minimum safe staffing levels on all shifts at all the seven 24-hour police stations statewide are fully implemented on July 1 this year.

Over the past two years, the government has increased police officer numbers at these stations by 71 to make this a reality. This implementation of mandated safe staffing levels is national best practice. We eagerly await the introduction of this safety measure.

Tasmania Police and the police association have worked collaboratively to provide roster reform to members statewide over the past two years. The most recent option is for those on these seven 24-hour stations to consider changing rosters from July this year from those that they have operated for more than two decades.

Tasmania Police, the police association and the University of Tasmania have agreed to and developed a three-year research project to analyse the workload of officers in this state, to ultimately identify what are the most important tasks officers should be doing to keep the Tasmanian community as safe as possible.

Like many organisations, we have prioritised our May budget wish-list.

The most important is to increase the number of specialist officers working on sexual assault and abuse of children. The current commission of inquiry will provide recommendations next year, but we know now these officers are needed to provide a more holistic and responsive service to victims statewide. These additional officers will ensure they are fully focused on sexual assault and abuse of children investigations and facilitating more effective inter-agency operability.

We have also requested specialist WHS staff to be placed statewide, and infrastructure renewal at the Rosebery and Smithton police stations.

The state government has also committed from both the 2018 and 2021 elections, specifically:

• Continuation to increase the numbers of sworn officers to firstresponder duties by 125 new police officers in first-responder roles by July 2022, and 20 officers to staff the full-time Special Operations Group by July 2024.

• 50 new police officers to predominantly investigative roles statewide by July 2026.

There are other major infrastructure matters being delivered, including:

• Building a new St Helens Police Station ($7.5m) and the upgrade of the Bridgewater Police Station ($12.5m).

• $46m for the upgrade of critical police ICT systems to ensure access to real-time intelligence, online crime reporting and provision of online firearms licensing.

• Replacement of the largest police vessel, the Van Diemen.

• Implementing the $567m Tasmanian Government Radio Network, with construction starting this year.

All of these budget priorities will make our members safer and ensure the safety of Tasmanian families.