Police Commissioner Mick Fuller to keep Premier Berejiklian to her commitment for more officers
POLICE Commissioner Mick Fuller will hold Premier Gladys Berejiklian to a ‘personal promise’ to increase police resources with the top priorities fighting child sex crimes, domestic violence, the highway patrol and regional policing.
NSW
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CHILD sex crimes, domestic violence, the highway patrol and regional policing are expected to be the top priorities on the NSW Police Force’s wish list for more officers.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the state’s police chiefs are drawing up submissions on how many extra personnel they need to fight crime in order to hold Premier Gladys Berejiklian to a commitment to increase resources.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller will use these figures to bargain with the Premier over a promise she made when he took over the top job one year ago to fund more frontline cops.
Commissioner Fuller revealed Ms Berejiklian, who has come under fire from some critics for spending on roads and infrastructure instead of frontline services, gave him a “personal commitment” that he could have more officers.
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The deal was that he would draw up his shopping list once his “re-engineering” of the force, which has included merging local area commands to get more officers out of the back rooms, was finished.
“The next phase is growing the organisation and the passion is to make sure we have enough police on the frontline,” Commissioner Fuller said.
“I spoke to the Premier personally last year about the re-engineering and the Premier gave me a personal commitment that if we engaged in this modernisation project that she would commit to give us more officers.”
The number of police officers has increased by less than 1000 over the last seven years despite a soaring population.
There are currently 16,746 officers with the NSW Police Association warning that the force is understrength with more than 500 vacant positions in metropolitan police stations alone.
Commissioner Fuller said he did not know how many officers he would be seeking but he had asked each of his four deputy commissioners for a stocktake to keep up with the changing face of crime.
Cybercrime and fraud have taken over from robberies and terrorism is a relatively new threat although counter-terrorism has been well funded.
“It’s not just about having more officers, it’s where we need them and that’s what we have been working on over the past couple of months,” Commissioner Fuller said. “In fairness we have had more police coming on but in the coming weeks we will put forward the number of police we need.”
In the biggest overhaul of the state’s police force in two decades, the commissioner has merged local area commands such as the Harbourside and North Shore and Campbelltown and Macquarie Fields and moved 60 extra officers to country towns to help fight the emerging ice epidemic.
Police Association president Scott Weber said the force needed at least 500 extra officers a year for the next five years.