Brumby pledges 2000 new cops

VICTORIA'S government has begun its battle for re-election by announcing it will fund almost 2000 extra police, days after a damaging opinion poll.

VICTORIA'S government has begun its battle for re-election by announcing it will fund almost 2000 extra police, just days after a damaging opinion poll and weeks after the Coalition released a similar election plan.

In what the opposition has dubbed the actions of a government in "panic mode", Premier John Brumby has finally responded to mounting concerns about law and order.

The $673.6 million boost to provide 1966 police over the next five years is more new officers than the Labor government has provided throughout its entire decade in power.

Mr Brumby described the plan -- under which 604 rookie officers would hit the streets in the first year -- as the "biggest single one-off boost to police numbers in the state's history".

It is a significant shift for the Premier, who has spent the past few months repeatedly reassuring the public that Victoria is a safe place and crime rates are generally going down.

This has been despite growing concerns about knife crime, attacks against Indian students and Productivity Commission figures that found Victoria had the lowest number of police per capita in the country.

Mr Brumby denied the policy was a bid to trump the opposition's earlier proposal to provide 1600 officers over four years. "This announcement today is all about frontline police, it's about making sure that there's a visible police presence in our community," he said.

The centrepiece of the government plan is $561m to recruit 1700 new frontline police over five years. Another $74m will be spent employing 200 civilians over four years to get desk-bound police back on the streets.

But Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the plan was one done by a government in "panic mode" and it was playing catch-up to the Coalition's promise at the start of the month.

He said the government had neglected law-and-order issues and ignored repeated calls by commentators, the public and victims' groups for more police.

"At the last moment, under pressure, in panic-moment mode, more focused on politics than actually policy, they have made an announcement which matches, on new police numbers, the Coalition's commitment," Mr Baillieu said.

Victorians are due to go to the polls in November.