Police officers headhunted to bolster Queensland force
The Queensland Police Service is poaching 300 officers from overseas and 100 more from interstate as it grapples with a recruiting crisis.
QLD News
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The Queensland Police Service is poaching 300 officers from overseas and 100 more from interstate as it grapples with a recruiting crisis.
It comes after emails penned by a stressed-out frontline officer on the Gold Coast were leaked, detailing his desperate struggles to cope with the area’s workload and his pleas for more resources.
The Courier-Mail revealed on Friday that Gold Coast district duty officer Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway had sent emails to his superiors asking for backup, saying as many as 90 calls for help from the public at a time were not being serviced.
He said offenders were using the M1 as their own private raceway and referred to one incident where a senior off-duty officer could not get help from police as he fought off a violent and drug-affected intruder in his own yard.
Sergeant Ottaway has been stood down from frontline duties over a controversial low-speed pursuit at Broadbeach last month involving two teenagers in an allegedly stolen car.
Asked about poor morale among police on the Gold Coast, Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll acknowledged that recruiting more officers had been challenging.
“We’ve gone international and we’ve got 300 coming from overseas as well as 100 from interstate,” she said.
It is understood hundreds of international and interstate applicants are currently being processed by the QPS recruitment section.
“The benefit of past police or present police is it’s a (shorter than normal) four-month course, so it really is a combination of demand as well as resourcing,” Ms Carroll said.
“But certainly it has been challenging and we’re in a better place now than we were in the last couple of years.”
Asked about claims that Sergeant Ottaway was also being investigated for his comments on resourcing, Ms Carroll said: “I don’t think that’s correct.”
Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said Sergeant Ottaway had his support.
“If people identify issues, we need to look at it and deal with it and fix it and that’s what we’re going to do – and I’m committed to doing that,” he said.
He said police on the Gold Coast were burdened by large numbers of domestic violence callouts as well as incidents involving mental health.
“What I can say is that recruiting is not just a problem in Queensland … it is a problem in Australia and New Zealand and the western world and that is why I’ve worked with the government and the Commissioner to look at other incentives,” he said.
“We’re trying to poach police from other jurisdictions (and) that is a really positive thing. Why wouldn’t you come to Queensland? It’s the best place in the country you could possibly live.”
Police Minister Mark Ryan said the government had provided “additional resources” that would be rolled out across the state.
“I know (Ms Carroll) has identified the South East region, which includes Logan and the Gold Coast, to invest those numbers,” he said.
“A minimum of 150 extra police are going to the South East region and I know the Commissioner is looking at putting additional resources even on top of that 150 into that region.”
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