‘At breaking point’: Police blow whistle on how many jobs they can’t get to

A police whistleblower has revealed how many jobs have been left unresourced in the Logan district, south of Brisbane.

A photo of a police computer sent to Nine News showed 128 jobs left unresourced, meaning a police car was not assigned to the incident.

The photo showed most related to domestic violence incidents, with some involving firearms.

A photo given to Nine News shows 128 jobs left unresourced, including domestic violence complaints.Credit: Nine News

Officers said 115 jobs were unresourced in Logan on Tuesday, and claimed staff were overworked and overstretched.

“It would take the deployment of Operation Whiskey Legion 365 days a year in Logan to even begin to get on top of the backlog,” one officer said.

Operation Whiskey Legion deployed police to various regions around the state as a short-term measure to boost local resources.

It was deployed in Logan in April, July, and December this year.

Police Minister Dan Purdie said the thin blue line had never been thinner.

“Our police at Logan and the Gold Coast and across Queensland are at breaking point, and they have been for some time,” he said.

“They’ve worked tirelessly, they feel overwhelmed, morale has never been lower. What we will do is give them the laws and the resources they need to help do their job.”

Purdie said the figure of 128 unresourced jobs was not unusual for the Logan district.

“I’ve seen it and heard it – up to 170 at any one time, it averages between 80 and 120 – that’s calls for service from Queenslanders to Logan who aren’t getting help,” he said.

Officers stressed that jobs of a critical nature were responded to in a timely manner, but said they were frustrated by an “arduous” domestic violence investigation process.

The Queensland Police Service responded in a statement acknowledging the Logan district had “demand pressures”.

“The QPS continues to adopt an agile and borderless policing approach enriched with technology, in which officers are no longer restricted to a static location,” it said.

“This means that regardless of where a frontline officer is based, they will spend the majority of their shift out in the community, responding to calls for service and patrolling.”

Frontline police in Logan, however, said they spent most of their shift filing paperwork.

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