Exclusive: Police Minister confirms 2500 vacant police jobs 10:43

It's 25 to 4. Now, I want to speak to all the police men and women listening now, former or currently serving. We can keep you anonymous if you'd like because we love the work that you do. But is there a chronic understaffing issue plaguing your colleagues? Because we've been sent a screenshot from a police Facebook page.

And it reckons there are 38 pages of police job vacancies. 38 pages, which means there are over 2,500 vacant positions within the New South Wales Police Force. Now, is this true? And if it is, gee whiz, is it acceptable? Yasmin Catley is the police minister. She's on the line for us. Minister, thank you for coming on. Oh, you're most welcome, Chris. It's an important issue and I'm happy to talk about it. Yeah, is it right, 2,500 vacant positions? Yes.

Well, I'm not sure it's exactly that amount, but I don't have any reason to disbelieve the webpage. But I do know that there are an inordinate amount of vacancies. I don't have the exact figure. But, Chris, I'm pleased that you started off your introduction by thanking the police because they do a job like no other.

But they are completely overstretched. They are exhausted. The government knows that. And we are doing everything we can to try to make that environment more conducive to recruiting, but very, very importantly, retaining the police that we have in New South Wales. It's been almost 18 months. So what are we doing to fill these 2,500 vacancies?

Happy to take you through it. As you know, we inherited 1,500 vacancies. There was no plan for recruitment, there was no plan for retention and their wages were being cut. So they are three of the issues why we're in the situation that we are in right here and right now. What we did very early on, pretty much in October last year, was we paid, we introduced paid vacancies.

study for the recruits down at Goldman. Now they get nearly $31,000 a year. I'm very pleased to tell you that the latest numbers that I have are that 1,770 applications have been received by the police since we made that announcement in October last year. That is almost a 50% increase compared to that same period when we took over government.

So that is something. But that's a recruitment piece, right? In addition to that, we have introduced the Experienced Officer Recruitment Scheme that incentivises officers from other jurisdictions right around Australia

this country and they can come and join the New South Wales Police Force, just to plug, the best police force in the world, up to senior constable level. We have even opened that up, if you can believe it, Chris, to across the ditch. And again, news to everyone in New South Wales, since we've made that announcement just a few months ago, we've received 18 applications and

and seven of those are from New Zealand. Now, the good thing about this program is they're experienced police officers. So they're coming in to the job and they know the job and they're very well trained and they get additional training from New South Wales. We've got the regional recruitment scheme and that's where if you want to be a cop in your hometown program, where it ensures that people from regional New South Wales serve in or near to their hometown. You know, often young graduates don't want to

Come to the city if they're from Bourke. So we give them the opportunity to put in there that they would prefer to be closer to their hometown, around their family and around their friends. So that's also been a great incentive as well. Has anyone taken that up? Oh, well, that's why the numbers are going up for our applications, of course, because they now know that they're going back to their hometown. So you've got 17, what, 1,770 who have applied at Goulburn. Is that right?

Correct. Okay. That's since October. That's since October. And how many of those will be accepted? Oh, well, they have to go through the vetting process, of course. But let me tell you that we'll have an attestation next month. We're already in August, aren't we? This month. And I haven't got the final numbers, but they're up around the 200 or just over 200. So we're

And you've got 18 from interstate in New Zealand. They go straight in. They do a component of training at Goulburn. That is correct. That's right. We've got those 18. We've also now lowered the age of joining from 19 to 18, which is a long-held tradition to have it at 19. So hopefully we'll be attracting those school leavers. Can I say something? Look, I'm not great at maths, but you're a long way off 2,500.

Oh, totally. Well, the $1,700 doesn't include those who are leaving the other end, like the retention piece. You're absolutely right. I couldn't agree with you more. And a lot of that is, as I said to you in my initial comments, is because they're exhausted and they're overstretched. So we have got in place also, which started last year, the Pulse program, and that includes support for mental health, physical health and fitness, as well as providing more support for injured and ill officers.

And also we've stood up a wellbeing command, which will be looking after the wellbeing of police. From what you're being told by the Commissioner, Karen Webb, are more police leaving compared to the numbers that you can recruit? Well, we have to turn that around. That's exactly what we have to turn around. So I'm just asking, is that happening?

more leaving than you can recruit. Well, I don't have the figures in front of me to tell you, but, I mean, you know, I think that we can anecdotally say that, yes, that is exactly what is happening. So that is why we need to be keeping our police in the New South Wales Police Force. An average officer will stay 12 years. I mean, we want policing to be a life...

fulfilling career where people have genuine careers that they enjoy and can stay there for a long time. A lot of money is spent on training our New South Wales police. Can I just say to you, I am flabbergasted at how skilled these people are and the breadth of their skills. Again, we can be sycophantic as we like to the police, right? I've got half my family coppers.

The truth is this. I didn't know that. The truth is this, right? They don't like the job very much. Well, I've met a lot who do. I'll tell you that, okay? There's a lot leaving. But absolutely. Well, the other thing is their wages had been stifled, had been cut. Well, where's the pay rise that you promised them?

Well, we're going through that award negotiation process as we speak. And as you already know, the New South Wales government have cut the cap and that's fantastic. So they're negotiations that are underway and they're very respectful. The Police Association have been fantastic. They are certainly fighting very hard for their members. So you will certainly hear about that when that's concluded.

Do you think... How far is that off by concluding, briefly? Oh, I can't give you an exact time, but, I mean, we're working... Weeks, months, end of the year, Christmas? We work in weekly together. Well, we work together so closely, and you'll hear about it. But what I can say to you is that the Premier has announced to New South Wales Police at their conference that they will receive back pay from 1 July, so they'll be missing out on nothing. OK. It depends what they get.

do you think it was a mistake for Commissioner Karen Webb and the former police commissioner Mick Fuller to go around and sack a whole bunch of sort of middle to late career experienced police officers? You're talking hundreds. Well,

Well, that's referred to as the re-engineering. Look, I've spoken to police on the ground and there's varying views on that, but certainly some of the commands out west, I'll use the Penrith command as an example, is absolutely massive and covers enormous ground. So it needs to be looked at and probably some...

So initiatives need to go in there to, you know, reduce the size of the command and also how large the area is. As in the geographical size of it? Yeah, the geographical area is massive that they actually attend out there. But, of course, Penrith's a very large metropolitan area as well. So, look, there's varying views on that. I'm not an expert, but what I will say is that we should be... Well, yeah, but I'm not an expert police officer is what I'm saying, but I listen to... You're the minister, though. You're the one making the decisions.

Well, particularly those commanders out in those posts. They can come back with very good intelligence on where you need people, what the skills are, the skill sets that you need out in those areas. And I'm listening to them. Do you think that this has a direct relation to the road toll that we're seeing? We've just got not enough police officers.

Well, I was disappointed to see Paul Toole, who's the spokesperson for police, blaming the police low numbers for deaths on the road. That is not true. And he should retract that, quite frankly. It's offensive. Why isn't it true? It's not true because it is behaviour that causes a road accident. It is not police officers. Yeah, but police officers deter that behaviour.

Well, to some degree. I mean, it's a very, you know, New South Wales is a very big state, as you well know, and to blame police for that is insulting, and I think that he needs to retract it. He's not blaming the police, he's blaming you. Yes, he did. No, he did. He did. And he should retract it. As I say, it's insulting. It's

The reality is people have to take responsibility. Speeding, drunk driving, drug driving, being distracted, whether it be on your phone or for other reasons, or being fatigued, all of these things are contributing to road deaths. And

It is the responsibility of the person behind the wheel not to be doing any of those things, Chris. And if we keep blaming police for the behaviour of individuals, then I just think that that is so wrong. And why would police want to stay in the police if they get blamed for everything, quite frankly? And that's what's going on at the moment. Well, I won't be doing that. I'm going to back them. I'm going to stick up for them. And I can tell you now, anybody who does otherwise, well, I think it's shameful.

Minister, I appreciate you coming on. I'll just give you one little bit of advice because my text line is blowing up here. It's pretty simple. They want more police and they want a hell of a lot more pay. So you better go to Chris Minns, who's notoriously tight, and tell him to open the wallet. Well, I agree with him. I definitely want more police doing everything I can to do that and working hard on their pay. Good on you. Thank you, Minister. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Chris. That's Yasmin Catley, the New South Wales Police Minister.