Speaker 1: Let's go to Dave Flaherty now he is the WA
Speaker 1: Police Union president. The Police Minister Rest Whitby has refused
Speaker 1: to set a recruitment target after Labor fell short of
Speaker 1: its twenty twenty promise to recruit an extra nine hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty police officers by twenty twenty four. I want
Speaker 1: to find out from Dave exactly what sort of numbers
Speaker 1: we have got flowing through the door. Dave, good morning
Speaker 1: to you mate.
Speaker 2: How are you yeah?
Speaker 3: Good morning Carl, how are you yeah?
Speaker 2: Really well?
Speaker 1: What sort of numbers have been achieved during this time?
Speaker 3: Look, he was in the McGowan government that promised the
Speaker 3: nine hundred and fifty extra police officers and we're still
Speaker 3: struggling to make that. We're still about three hundred short.
Speaker 3: Having said that, there are more police officers now than
Speaker 3: every before, which is great. Unfortunately, we're filling up with
Speaker 3: young officers and that's not a bad thing on their behalf.
Speaker 3: They're doing a fantastic job. But retention is the key,
Speaker 3: trying to keep some of our senior and experienced officers.
Speaker 2: So what do they want to leave.
Speaker 3: Of this many reasons, tenure is a problem. People specialize
Speaker 3: in the area and they can't stay in that area.
Speaker 3: They need to move on. Just the rigors of policing.
Speaker 3: I think I've spoke last week in relation to the
Speaker 3: number of assaults on police officers that's going through the roof.
Speaker 3: It is not a fantastic career choice right now. We
Speaker 3: don't feel that we're getting support from government and other
Speaker 3: government departments such as the courts. It's just not in
Speaker 3: a great place.
Speaker 2: Is the paperwork over the top?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's a bit ironic because certainly with this commissioner,
Speaker 3: who's more tech savvy than anyone before, there was a
Speaker 3: real push to be paper free, and sadly there's more
Speaker 3: paperwork now than every before.
Speaker 2: Why is that red tape.
Speaker 3: Red tape bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's in all ab out lives though, let's
Speaker 1: face it. I mean it's just out of control everywhere.
Speaker 1: Dave and I feel your pain. Look when you get
Speaker 1: an opportunity to go through the police academy, which we
Speaker 1: saw recently, even Oliver Peterson, I saw him down there,
Speaker 1: and you know, focus on domestic violence and dealing with
Speaker 1: those sorts of situations with a lot of these young
Speaker 1: officers that are training. How much can a young person
Speaker 1: who wants to enter the police force earn.
Speaker 3: So as a as a recruit, it's just sort of
Speaker 3: eighty thousand that goes up in their first year to
Speaker 3: just over ninety thousand by they've done five or six
Speaker 3: years and the police force they're well over one hundred thousand.
Speaker 4: Right, and they obviously get some benefits for going to
Speaker 4: some remote places et cetera, which is where all are.
Speaker 2: Those young people feel.
Speaker 4: Do you think generally though the public's are enough of police?
Speaker 2: No, I don't.
Speaker 3: And the problem, well, I think the problem we have
Speaker 3: Mills is whilst the whilst the numbers of police are increasing,
Speaker 3: bureaucracy is holding them in the office. But the population
Speaker 3: of Western Australia is also booming, so the police the
Speaker 3: population ratio is bigger now than every before. And as
Speaker 3: the population increases, demand increases, so police i'll are being
Speaker 3: tied up at jobs for longer. Are junior officers who
Speaker 3: are doing a fantastic job and I'm not knocking them
Speaker 3: at all don't have the experience to deal with matters
Speaker 3: as fast as our experienced officer. So retention is the key.
Speaker 3: Keep the experienced officers get the job done quicker they can.
Speaker 3: They can attend to more issues.
Speaker 1: So to keep the officers in the job, what do
Speaker 1: you think needs to be done.
Speaker 3: We need to look at the tenior policy. We need
Speaker 3: to get that to get that change so that people
Speaker 3: can settle down and decide on a career path. We
Speaker 3: also need to look at greater respite. The job is
Speaker 3: more demanding now than every before. You can't keep flogging
Speaker 3: people until the morale improves. You've got to make sure
Speaker 3: that they're in a working environment that supports their family
Speaker 3: life balance and their health.
Speaker 2: What sort of leave do officers get in a yearly basis?
Speaker 1: Is it four weeks like what you'd call a normal
Speaker 1: nine to five job, because it's not a normal job.
Speaker 3: No, no, So they get six weeks of leave, which
Speaker 3: is made up of a number of things. So the
Speaker 3: standard industry four weeks like everybody gets, but they get
Speaker 3: in the additional two weeks, which is supposed to account
Speaker 3: for public holidays, supposed to account for the rigors of policing,
Speaker 3: and supposed to account for the demand of working varied shifts.
Speaker 3: So there's not a great compensation when you think we'll
Speaker 3: give you two weeks and that covers for the rigors
Speaker 3: of policing. It covers for public holidays, of which there
Speaker 3: is eleven this year, and it covers for shift work
Speaker 3: right where there is a national instrument that awards an additional
Speaker 3: week of leave for working those sort of ships.
Speaker 2: Just very quickly, is it room for part time police officers?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, we have part time police officers. We have
Speaker 3: plenty of them.
Speaker 2: And do they do other jobs as well?
Speaker 4: So I want to do fifty as a police officer
Speaker 4: and I want to run a garden center for the
Speaker 4: other fifty.
Speaker 2: Is there room for that in the police force? Is
Speaker 2: there flexibility?
Speaker 3: Yes, there is the secondary employment conditions and obviously that
Speaker 3: would vary. It certainly wouldn't want you in the security
Speaker 3: industry if you're a police officer, wouldn't want you working
Speaker 3: in a lone supremacist if you're if you're a police officer.
Speaker 3: So those those things have some restrictions, and.
Speaker 4: There is no age restrictions, right, Okay, Well, I'd love
Speaker 4: to ask the question of the public do they see
Speaker 4: enough police officers around the beat? And we'll ask that
Speaker 4: question right now, Dave, thanks your time, Dave Flarherty. There
Speaker 4: w a police union president