Victoria Police has a shortage of 1,000 officers after a huge surge in departures in recent months amid a nationwide recruitment crisis, official force statistics show.
There are now 1,029 vacant positions statewide, up by 200 since June 30, and the situation in Victoria is so dire that the force is contacting applicants who failed entrance exams or physicals and asking them to reapply, 7 News reported.
New South Wales Police has an even worse shortage of 2,279 officers, while Queensland is short 895, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have 200 positions vacant each, South Australia has 170, Tasmania is down 32 and the ACT down 22.
The Victoria shortfall is due to a slowing number of recruits and a surge in retirements, the Herald Sun reported.
Acting Senior-Sergeant Joseph Hartwig from Hume in Melbourne’s north-west, where crime in up 12.7%, said the force was stretched too thin to patrol the community properly as his main focus has become making sure police stations were properly staffed.
“It makes it extraordinarily difficult to commit to public safety and continue to provide that service to the community,” he said.
“It’s a real concern for me, I’d love to provide a higher level of service to the community, but it’s really, really problematic and I just don’t have the staff to deliver it.
“I’d prevent more crime through my members being out there, deterring people before offences occur.”
Police Federation of Australia CEO Scott Weber told ABC News last month that the recruitment crisis was the worst he’d seen in 30 years, and officers had a massive backlog of jobs.
“That means members of the public aren’t being protected,” he said.
“That means members of public aren’t being responded to, but it also means that police officers are already starting with such a difficult workload, and they can never catch up.”
Mr Weber added that the recruitment problems were being exacerbated by regular protests which were sucking up manpower, and high rates of long-term sick leave. In Victoria 747 officer are off sick on WorkCover, 612 of those for mental health issues.
Public confidence in Victoria Police is at an all-time low after the actions of the force during the Covid pandemic, with just 58% of residents satisfied with policing services, down from 73.1% a year ago, while the same percentage say they have confidence in the force, a fall of 17% from the 2022-23 high.
The force’s dire public confidence ratings were a result of harsh and sometimes-illegal enforcement of the left-wing Labor state government’s draconian and human rights-violating Covid lockdowns and restrictions, a former chief commissioner said in June.
“Unfortunately, what we saw through Covid and the lockdowns was many police actions being unreasonable, violent and indefensible. Victoria Police were seen as tools of the government, not independent, and that cost them dearly,” Kel Glare said.
South Australian police warned last month the recruitment crisis in their state meant that officers could no longer effectively patrol the notoriously violent Hindley St party precinct, meaning public safety could not be guaranteed.
In Queensland a damning internal fraud and corruption review found that in 2022 alone there were more than 1,000 misconduct reports from inside the Queensland Police Service (QPS), including hundreds of allegations of violence.
The QPS is so desperate for new officers that in 2023 it launched a global recruitment drive to find 500 foreign nationals a year for five years to join the force. They are not required to be Australian citizens or permanent residents.
Last year South Australia announced plans to allow 200 officers from overseas to fill frontline shortages, and Western Australia will also recruit hundreds of foreign officers over the next five years.
Despite the recruitment crisis Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced a $400 million Pacific Policing Initiative to train police officers in Pacific Island nations.
