The Police Association said officers will leave the NT over retention bonus backflip
Six-months since the NT election, the chief minister and a powerful union are already going toe-to-toe. Read why.
Northern Territory
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Just days after agreeing to honour its election commitment to pay the police retention bonus, the Northern Territory Government and police union are again at loggerheads over the tenure of the scheme.
The NT Police Association said chief minister Lia Finocchiaro promised the scheme would last for five years to ensure most officers would fall into the 10, 15, 20, 25 years-plus milestone catchment.
They accused her of backflipping on the pledge.
Ms Finocchiaro said the promise would apply only for officers achieving those milestones from January 1 this year.
The CLP’s August 14, 2024 media release announcing the retention bonus measure when still in opposition said the payments would only apply to this year.
“As part of the $3m program, a lump sum Retention Bonus will be given to all police officers who reach 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 year milestones next year,” the CLP’s August 2024 media release said.
“A $10,000 bonus will be given to those who dedicated 10 years’ service, $15,000 for those who have served 15 years and $20,000 for those who celebrate 20, 25 and 30 year milestones. “The Retention Bonus package is expected to benefit more than 120 officers.”
The Police Association said Ms Finocchiaro had committed “on multiple occasions” to pay the bonsues over five years from 2025.
They pointed to a statement sent to media last week which committed to increasing the retention bonus from a 12-month to a five-year trial.
NT Police Association president Nathan Finn said the organisation had raised concerns with the chief minister the proposal to only pay for member milestones reached in 2025 would be “divisive and discriminate” against most NTPA members.
He said coupled with “the news that police will now be bound to an insulting 3 per cent wages policy is going to have devastating impacts for the Northern Territory Police Force and ultimately the safety of the Northern Territory community”.
He said the retention “crisis” would see interstate police forces “lure officers away” with significantly better pay and conditions.
“The CLP Government promised to start to fix this crisis by introducing a retention bonus,” Mr Finn said.
“A lot of members voted for Lia Finocchiaro believing they would receive a significant retention bonus.
“Last week, that amount was slashed, and today, I am forced to tell most of our members that they are not guaranteed to receive anything at all.”
He said comments by Ms Finocchiaro on broadcaster Katie Woolf’s Mix FM news program on Monday that the NTPA did not want a five-year retention agreement were untrue.
“Let me be very clear, a five-year agreement is something that the NTPA fought for and received a commitment from the Chief Minister for - to say anything else is completely false,” he said.
“You cannot call this a retention bonus when over 90 per cent of police officers will potentially receive nothing, and we don’t have time to wait for what future years may now look like.
“This broken commitment will be the final straw for many officers - they will make arrangements to leave the NT Police Force.”
Ms Finocchiaro apologised on Katie Woolf’s Mix FM radio broadcast for her role in creating confusion around the size of the retention payment, blaming media commentary for confusing the issue.
She said no matter what milestone bonus model was introduced, “people will still miss out”.
She said if a five-year retention bonus was introduced, it would be different to the one she flagged last year.
“We never committed to five years, it was a one year police retention bonus and everyone we promised who would get the retention bonus will get the retention bonus. That is lock solid, absolutely no problems,” she said.
“What I have said in the past week is that what will this look like going forward because 61 per cent of constables leave before the 10 year mark, and that’s a huge number of police, so do I need to put more resources or more energy or look more closely at what people at that level need to keep them in the job for longer.”
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Originally published as The Police Association said officers will leave the NT over retention bonus backflip
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