Queensland Police Union boss said sweeping changes are needed to stops officer exodus

Queensland’s union boss is concerned there might not be a police force in 10 years, if the next government fails to make crucial steps to fix frontline officers’ overwhelming domestic violence workload.

QPU President Shane Prior said wide ranging reforms are needed to stop the exodus of police officers from the QPS. Picture: David Clark

Whoever wins government on the weekend must make sweeping changes to how police deal with domestic and family violence, or face the prospect of a mass exodus officers in the coming decade.

That’s according to Queensland Police Union president Shane Prior, who says the explosion in Domestic Family Violence reporting, along with the burden of reviewing every investigation is leaving officers burnt out and fearful that they will be suspended if they make the wrong call.

“We are at a real crossroads in society and we need to drastically look at this because if we do not, I have genuine concern we are not going to have a police service in the next decade,” he said in an exclusive interview with News Corp.

“People will not want to join this job just to do DFV.”

Domestic violence investigations now make up the majority of police calls for the service and are expected to balloon further as new legislation around coercive control is rolled out.

At any given time police are monitoring about 22,000 domestic violence protection orders across Queensland.

In 2023 they wrote up more than 40,000 breach charges, according to data collected by the Department of Justice.

Mr Prior said police were grappling with the trauma of responding to back-to-back domestic violence incidents while also balancing a complicated review process that was instituted after the 2022 independent Commission of Inquiry into the Police Response to Domestic Violence.

The inquiry called for all material from an investigation where DFV could not be identified to be reviewed by senior officers.

This process often involves police re-watching hours of body worn footage.

Mr Prior said the burdensome review process was unworkable given staffing shortages across the organisation and the broadening definition of DFV.

“So many jobs are now classified as DFV and require extensive investigation when they should never be categorised as that in the first place,” he said

“I was in Logan for a 2-10pm shift last Tuesday and there were 144 unresourced jobs, of those 72 were DFV, of those 72, the oldest five days old.

“In Cairns two 6-year-olds were fighting and their mother called the police.

“At Mt Gravatt a 22-years-old man’s mother took his phone off him because he wasn’t doing his chores, so he contacted police and said he was being coercively controlled by his mother.

“Police are responding to these jobs and it is becoming unsustainable.”

The union’s solution is for other government departments like Queensland Health, Youth Justice, Child Safety and the Department of Corrections, to step up and help carry the load.

The first step would be to put health and support staff on a 24-hour, seven-day roster to support police or take over matters if intervention is needed.

“Children are still being abused on the weekend. People are still having mental health episodes on the weekend and public holidays but police are the only agency responding to those incidents,” Mr Prior said.

“We have seen an explosion of reporting of DV and we’re simply not getting to the role of what police are there for and that’s proactive policing of the community.

“Don’t get me wrong, if someone is being hurt, if property is being damaged, police want to go to those jobs, they want to make sure people are being safe.”

Mr Prior said about 520 police have quit this year, while the pool of officers with 7–12 years of experience has shrunk to about 2000, across a total force strength of 12,000.

“The QPS has a big hole in its staffing bucket, it’s okay to keep filling it up, but if it is all running out the bottom then we have a real problem,” he said.

Along with addressing DFV burnout, the union wants rolling superannuation and cash bonuses to reward police for their long service.

“Our experienced police are seeking commitments around retention options, improved rostering to achieve better work-life balance, additional annual leave to provide a break of domestic violence trauma and stress, and rental assistance for young officers,” Mr Prior said.

He also wants to see the QPS disciplinary process streamlined, with some responsibilities taken off the Ethical Standards Command and handed back to supervisors.

“Police find the discipline process unfair, like they are constantly under siege so we have police second-guessing themselves,” Mr Prior said.

“I accept that as police, we’re held to a higher standard, but we have also got to empower supervisors.

“They should be able to deal with things like inter-office conflict or minor complaints from the public.”

Originally published as Queensland Police Union boss said sweeping changes are needed to stops officer exodus