‘Burnout service’: Qld cops paid $72m in overtime in just seven months

Government documents have revealed taxpayers forked out a whopping $72m for police overtime in just seven months, a $11m jump compared to the same period last year.

Queensland police on the beat.

Queensland police officers have been paid a staggering $72m in overtime in just seven months, nearly $340,000 a day, as the force grapples with burnout and soaring crime rates.

Government documents have revealed taxpayers forked out $72m for overtime between February 1 and August 31 this year, a $11m jump compared to the same period in 2023 and a $23m increase from 2022.

It comes less than a month after the police union revealed burnt-out cops were chucking “sickies” amid a backlog of youth crime and domestic and family violence call-outs.

QPU president Shane Prior said walking the beat had “never been as dangerous” as he called for more assistance from other government departments and first responders.

Mr Prior said officers attended 192,000 domestic and family violence call-outs in the last year while psychological injury claims were up 129 per cent.

“Now we have young people going to work, looking at their job list with 20 jobs backed up ready to go, 15 of those are probably going to be domestic and family violence,” he said.

Mr Prior said officers had up to 18 days of “unplanned” sick leave – or “sickies” – every year.

Queensland Police Union president Shane Prior. Picture: Tertius Pickard

“Sickies by police who are stressed, who are under pressure,” he said. “That should be a concern because our police mentally cannot cope with the job and if we do not do something now we are going to have a burnout service.”

Mr Prior also suggested youth justice workers could be rostered on with police to deal with these issues “head on”.

Police Minister Mark Ryan said the state government would continue to support the Queensland Police Service (QPS) using overtime in “the interests of community safety”.

“The government provides funding for the QPS to use overtime for community safety,” he said.

National police data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics released last month showed a total 289,657 Queenslanders were victims of crime in 2023, the highest in the nation and an increase of 13 per cent compared to the previous year. Crime victim numbers for 2023 revealed Queensland also recorded the highest number of victims in robbery, break-ins and vehicle theft – crimes mostly committed by juvenile offenders.

Acting Assistant Commissioner for youth crime Colin Briggs at the time said police were seeing some improvement in the amount of crime in 2024 thanks to a ramp up in policing operations and initiatives. “And we’re seeing that starting to turn around,” he said.

Mr Ryan noted that figures included both police and staff overtime, but excluded overtime worked on special services which is cost recovered by fees.

Speaking at a media conference on Sunday, Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said Queensland needed more police.

“The fact that we have fewer police is a direct correlation, that they don’t have the laws, that they don’t have the resources to do their job, and as a result, the thin blue line keeps getting thinner, because police are leaving at record amounts,” he said.

“Even with a pipeline coming through, it means that we’re less than 1000 police short of where the government said we would be today,”

Mr Crisafulli said if more police weren’t recruited, they would continue to be “stretched”.

“It just shows you the kind of men and women who make up the Queensland Police Service, that they will put their hand up to do that extra shift, because even though they are tired, they know they have to serve their community because there aren’t enough police to do the job,” he said.

“We’re determined to give police the resources they need, the laws they need to do their job, and with that, department ability to have more people there to help the community in their hour of need.”