Editorial: Top cop undone by fail on recruitment

An analysis of police numbers provides an explanation why Katarina Carroll’s contract as police commissioner was never going to be renewed, writes the editor.

The saying goes that there are three kinds of lies – lies, damned lies, and statistics. The ongoing political debate about police numbers in Queensland proves that all three are indeed interchangeable.

An analysis of the numbers also provides a better explanation than sexism as to why Katarina Carroll’s contract as police commissioner was never going to be renewed by a government under pressure on youth crime.

Yes, she was recently “treated with absolute contempt” by some senior officers, as Police Union president Ian Leavers said yesterday. If the motivation was indeed sexism, then that should be called out. That is appalling.

But a critical political point must not be missed. And it starts with the facts, as reported annually in the Police Service’s annual report.

In the last full year of the Bligh Labor government – 2011 – there were 10,557 Queensland police officers. Meanwhile, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 4,476,778 people living in Queensland in June of that year. That means there were 236 officers for every 100,000 residents.

In the last full year of the Newman LNP government – 2014 – there were 10,978 officers serving 4,719,653 residents. That is, 233 officers per 100,000 people.

The year after, Labor was back in power and there were 11,013 officers – 231 per 100,000 Queenslanders.

Fast-forward to 2023 and there were 11,702 officers – an increase of 689 in total. However, the population has soared in those intervening years – to 5,459,400.

And so the proportion of officers per 100,000 residents has actually dropped – to 214, the lowest ratio at any point during the past 12 years at least (we only looked back to 2011).

Looking at the data another way, in 2015, there was a police officer for every 434 Queenslanders. Today, there is one for every 467 of us.

What does this all mean? Firstly, that both sides of politics are using the same statistics on this topic to make their political points – and to accuse the other side of telling lies.

And so the government is right when it says there are more police officers on the ground than when the LNP was last in power.

But the opposition is also right when it says that the number of police officers is failing to keep up with the growth in population.

The missing link is recruitment – a matter that was Ms Carroll’s to own as effectively the chief executive of the Police Service.

Government ministers have taken to using the Orwellian term of “approved strength” when referring to police numbers.

By “approved strength” they mean allocation of funds in the budget, rather than boots on the ground – that is, the number they have funded rather than the reality.

It is true that the government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars more to boost funded police numbers by 2025 between 2020 and 2025.

But with police recruitment proving a massive challenge at the same time as experienced officers are leaving the service in droves due to low morale, the number of actual officers grew by just 92 between 2020 and 2023.

Had the actual number of officers grown between those years by even half the number the government says it has delivered funding for (and so by 1000), there would today be 244 officers for every 100,000 Queenslanders – the highest ratio in at least 15 years.

There would be one officer for every 409 Queenslanders.

And so this is actually where outgoing Commissioner Carroll went wrong. Beyond all the noise from fed-up officers, she failed to deliver for the government on a key election promise.

Police recruitment is an operational matter.

And while the buck should always stop with the minister, any politician under pressure in an election year will look for an excuse to make a scapegoat.

LEAGUE THE GREATEST

Statistics might often be easy to manipulate but the numbers that do not lie are your financial results – and there is no denying the success of the NRL in the post-Covid years.

As the league’s annual general meeting yesterday, chairman Peter V’landys revealed that after being just weeks from running out of cash during Covid, the league has since banked $164.2m in profits.

He revealed that revenue last year topped a new record of $700m, an 18 per cent increase on the previous year – for a surplus of $58.2m, the third consecutive year of profitability.

Yet beyond all the dollars and cents, for league fans the important thing is how the game has improved in recent years.

We will always quibble and banter about this rule change or that, but the reality is that rugby league has never been faster or more engaging.

And the audience numbers support that, with total viewership in 2023 up 14 per cent to 171.8 million – making rugby league Australia’s most-watched sport.

There is no wonder it is called the greatest game of all. The numbers support that truth.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here