Police in staffing demand

TWEED police say the current staffing levels are at crisis point and can’t wait four years for the promised 1500 new recruits to hit the beat across the state.

The NSW Government announced yesterday it would spend $583 million adding 1500 officers into the force over the next four years, the biggest injection in three decades.

Tweed Byron Police Association representative Darren McCaughey said the district needed staff now.

“The announcement of the additional 1500 police comes after a lot of hard work by the Police Association of NSW,” he said. “We wait to see how these additional police are allocated throughout the state.

“Just as importantly we wait for information on the time frames for the additional staff to hit the ‘coal face’ of our policing commands. There are places across the state that are in a staffing crisis, such as our Tweed Byron Police District.

“We need a significant number of additional police and we need them now.”

A spokesman for the NSW Police Force said current resource levels were being assessed to allocate the officers over the next four years.

Tweed MP Geoff Provest said Tweed and Byron Local Area Command would get more officers but it wasn’t a political decision.

“What is concerning is the downgrading of the police force across the border in Queensland. In the past we have had to clean up some of their mess.”

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan said Mr Provest’s comments were “laughable”.

“There are 170 police in the Tweed and Byron police district,” he said.

“There are more than 1000 police on the Gold Coast.”