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Speaker 1: Has been an issue which has been well documented on

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Speaker 1: this show. Police understrain juggling everyday duties while managing COVID responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: It's a concern that we spoke extensively about last year,

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Speaker 1: and one which continues into twenty twenty two, with Police

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Speaker 1: Association President Paul mcue penning an opinion piece in the

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Speaker 1: Sunday Territorium saying that exhausted officers are being spread dangerously

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Speaker 1: thin as the burden of COVID nineteen enforcement adds extra

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Speaker 1: mental stress to the Northern Territory Police depleted ranks. Now,

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Speaker 1: Mister McHugh said that officers were reporting back instances where

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Speaker 1: even the highest of priority jobs were taking hours to

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Speaker 1: respond to. Now joining me on the line is the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory Police Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst. Good morning to

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Speaker 1: you morning, Katie. How are you very well now, Assistant Commissioner.

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Speaker 1: Yesterday border controls were dropped and testing requirements for interstate

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Speaker 1: and international travelers no longer in place have an impact

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Speaker 1: when it comes to policing in the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 2: Right now, of course it will so at the moment

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Speaker 2: we still have twenty police officers committed to the border

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Speaker 2: control points. It will take twenty four to forty eight

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Speaker 2: hours or so to be able to wind those points

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Speaker 2: back to make sure the infrastructure is decommissioned, and those

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Speaker 2: offices will then move back to their stations and then

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Speaker 2: be placed back into their normal duties and roles as

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Speaker 2: everything else changes with the COVID environment. So I the

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Speaker 2: twenty for decentner last year, the territory opened up, and

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Speaker 2: we've seen the territory shift through this living with the

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Speaker 2: COVID days of its journey, and we're seeing obviously COVID

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Speaker 2: impact in the community across the territory. We still require

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Speaker 2: police presence and support in the communities where this lock

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Speaker 2: ens and lockdowns, but as we move through those as well,

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Speaker 2: because there are seven day periods generally rolling, we'll see

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Speaker 2: the territory slowly move through this COVID and become as

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Speaker 2: we most urban areas are highly vaccinated, as all the

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Speaker 2: urban remote areas sorry to become highly vaccinated as well.

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Speaker 2: And our ability to live with OMICRON as the current

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Speaker 2: COVID variant that it's predominant the territory, we're able to

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Speaker 2: then move most of those resources back to what their

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Speaker 2: specifical original purpose.

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Speaker 1: May have been so at the moment, how many officers

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Speaker 1: have been dealing with the COVID pandemic. I know that

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Speaker 1: you mentioned twenty on those borders, but there had been

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Speaker 1: claims that it was up to one hundred.

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Speaker 2: So I read a claim that it was up to

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty. That may well have been in

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Speaker 2: the very early days in twenty twenty when we had

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Speaker 2: biosecurity all over the territory. But at the moment where

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Speaker 2: we have over one hundred committed to COVID related activities

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Speaker 2: across the territory and they're working in the operations center

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Speaker 2: both in Darwen and in our springs. We also have

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Speaker 2: lots of frontline members who are operating in the remote

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Speaker 2: communities where the blockhouns to support those remote police. But

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Speaker 2: as we as we start to move through this, a

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Speaker 2: lot of those people were drawn back to the normal

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Speaker 2: roles and will provide ongoing rotation support to the frontline

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Speaker 2: members in remote areas from urban areas such as traffic patrols,

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Speaker 2: so that it's more about normalizing our business and living

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Speaker 2: with COVID as opposed to the spoken response we've had

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Speaker 2: to provide ups to this point because of the risk

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Speaker 2: that COVID is posed to our community.

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Speaker 1: And I guess no matter how you look at it, it

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Speaker 1: is a large number. I mean, more than one hundred

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Speaker 1: is a large number of officers. According to the Police Association,

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Speaker 1: a survey which they conducted, they say that more than

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Speaker 1: eighty percent of officers reported an increasing duty since the

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Speaker 1: start of the pandemic. What kind of impact does it

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Speaker 1: have on officers doing their day jobs?

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure that eighty percent increase in their

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Speaker 2: members are sorry their duties would actually mean, but that

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Speaker 2: make no mistake. It has had an It's placed increased

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Speaker 2: pressure on our frontline workforce, our investcative workforce, everyone within

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Speaker 2: the agency because we've had to manage this threat that

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Speaker 2: we hadn't seen privacy, this pandemic as well as managing

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Speaker 2: our frontline response. And as a consequence of COVID, we

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Speaker 2: did see an increase in croninal activity at times, increase

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Speaker 2: in disposable income, we increase that access to alcohol, increase

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Speaker 2: in transience and that changed the way in which policing

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Speaker 2: had to be managed in certain areas. So it has

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Speaker 2: been a really challenging period, but we had enough staff

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Speaker 2: to do what we need to do, we'd move our

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Speaker 2: staff to where the need arises. We know that there

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Speaker 2: are at times when COVID has caused us to have

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Speaker 2: depleted resources in certain locations. I can tell you that

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Speaker 2: as of yesterday, the DNA frontline team have ten people

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Speaker 2: who are unavailable because of COVID related matters. So there's

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Speaker 2: ten frontline people that we don't have for a period

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Speaker 2: of time while they get through the impact of COVID

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Speaker 2: on those individual Does.

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Speaker 1: That then have a big impact? You know, when you

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Speaker 1: talk about people responding to jobs, I mean if like,

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Speaker 1: let's for an example, you know, somebody is broken into

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Speaker 1: or they've got somebody trying to break into their home,

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Speaker 1: they call the police. If the police are busy at

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Speaker 1: dealing with COVID matters, does it mean that there is

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Speaker 1: a delay in terms of somebody heading out to a job.

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Speaker 2: No, there's two different things at play here. So the

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Speaker 2: front line is the front line, and everyone working on

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Speaker 2: COVID is off doing COVID. The front line is still there.

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Speaker 2: I've read the information around one van for the day

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Speaker 2: and CBD that's actually never the case. You and I

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Speaker 2: discussed this previously, that there might be a situation that

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Speaker 2: happens very infrequently where there might only be one van

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Speaker 2: for a particular area, but that one van is never

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Speaker 2: working in isolation. There's always across a whole Greater Dan

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Speaker 2: area several other police vehicles, whether they be vans. We

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Speaker 2: don't just use police vans, supervisor vehicles, RULs, watch commander people.

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Speaker 2: There's lots of police presence across the Greater Dayne area,

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Speaker 2: and sometimes we do have multiple competing priorities, which means

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Speaker 2: at times there will be some delays and responses, but

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Speaker 2: we will get to every job as quickly as we

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Speaker 2: possibly tempt to make sure that the community service accordingly.

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Speaker 1: Assistant Commissioner, are investigations being delayed as a result of

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Speaker 1: officers being drawn to COVID jobs.

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Speaker 2: I've read that also, and I'm not sure that's a

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Speaker 2: reference to I would suggest not. We are doing everything

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Speaker 2: we can to provide that same service that we've always done.

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Speaker 2: We are under pressure at times with resourcing, absolutely, but

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Speaker 2: that's when we look at our entire workforce. We don't

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Speaker 2: look at one deal area in isolation. We look at

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Speaker 2: the entire workforce and will move our workforce to where

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Speaker 2: we need at at any bording time to make sure

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Speaker 2: that we're the meeting demand where demand is now. I

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Speaker 2: think a perfect sorry, a perfect example of that. These

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Speaker 2: other springs through some challenging times in the recent past,

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Speaker 2: and we've deployed additional resources from Dala down to our

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Speaker 2: springs to support that community. And that's a perfect example

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Speaker 2: of what that means. When the need arises, we will

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Speaker 2: listen to what's going on, observe it, and meet the

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Speaker 2: needed that the community expects us to deliver.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, look, that situation in Alice Springs is one which

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Speaker 1: has been well documented. But we also know that the

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Speaker 1: mayor of Alice Springs obviously writing to various politicians around

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Speaker 1: the country really calling for additional help. How under stress

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Speaker 1: are our offices in Alice Springs at the moment.

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Speaker 2: It's an interesting I've set of circumstances. So every time,

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Speaker 2: every year, sorry, the summer occurs in other springs, and

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Speaker 2: every year we see a surge of people into our springs.

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Speaker 2: Whether events have an impact on that community activity or

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Speaker 2: cultural activity has an impact on that. This is no different.

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Speaker 2: We've seen a spike or a surge in people coming

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Speaker 2: to our springs and increase criminal or negative activity as

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Speaker 2: a consequence, and as I say we've dealt with it,

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Speaker 2: and we've seen a lot of that activity already come

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Speaker 2: off that peak. Seventeen police officers would appelled from Darwin,

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Speaker 2: and I believe there were ten additional recruit staff starting

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Speaker 2: there last week. Salor Springs has plenty of staff to

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Speaker 2: do with it, as any situation with rich community.

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Speaker 1: Is it a situation though in Alice Springs where it's

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Speaker 1: not actually an issue of there not being enough police police,

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Speaker 1: but there's actually not enough other support services.

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Speaker 2: I can't necessarily comment on what the other support services are.

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Speaker 2: But what I do though is police work extremely close

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Speaker 2: to all of our counterparts in our springs, actually across

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Speaker 2: the terrify. It doesn't matter where it is, because none

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Speaker 2: of the issues that we speak of police only issues.

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Speaker 2: Every issue has a causation and that causation is what

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Speaker 2: we need to address. And we've spent a lot of

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Speaker 2: time working with our government and non government partners to

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Speaker 2: be able to identify an issue, work through a solution,

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Speaker 2: and then make sure that that's actually having a level

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Speaker 2: of sustainability for that particular issue, community area, whatever it

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Speaker 2: may be. So we need to continue to work with everyone.

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Speaker 2: It's not about parting blame on anyone here. We all

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Speaker 2: need to come to the party. Every agency needs to

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Speaker 2: stump up, get in and make sure that we can

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Speaker 2: do everything we can atis community.

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Speaker 1: Now, Assistant Commissioner, we are fast running out of time,

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Speaker 1: but I do want to ask you a couple of

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Speaker 1: quick questions. I've got one from a listener here. It says,

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Speaker 1: if there are one hundred police that are being used

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Speaker 1: on COVID duties, how can we say that that's not

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Speaker 1: having an impact on the front line.

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Speaker 2: I didn't say it wasn't having an impact. I've acknowledged

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Speaker 2: that it's having an impact, but all of those hundred

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Speaker 2: police officers aren't coming from the front line. We've got investigators,

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Speaker 2: We've got auxiliary staff. Were are lots of people who

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Speaker 2: are operating in the COVID space, and we know that

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Speaker 2: we've had to turn some things off in the back

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Speaker 2: ends for example, and Darlad, we're running only one watchhouse

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Speaker 2: so that able to READI play our other staff to

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Speaker 2: make sure that where we have had COVID staff deployed,

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Speaker 2: we have sufficient resources to cover those particular gaps we've created,

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Speaker 2: so our front caunters have reduced hours as well. There

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Speaker 2: are little things we've had to do to be able

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Speaker 2: to nuance the balance. But our front line is to

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Speaker 2: our priority and our commitment, and we'll continue to support

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Speaker 2: the community. We'll continue to push resources to where they

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Speaker 2: need to go, and we'll continue to make sure we've

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Speaker 2: got enough staff to support our community across the territory.

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Speaker 1: Now, there are plenty of other issues around the place

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Speaker 1: that I am keen to speak about at some point,

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Speaker 1: but we might have to hold those off for another day.

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Speaker 1: I do want to ask you before I let you go.

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Speaker 1: Is community safety being jeopardized because because in some cases

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Speaker 1: you may be short staffed.

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Speaker 2: Look, I don't suggest we're doing short staffed, And we

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Speaker 2: have a grading system. Every time a job is callding

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Speaker 2: to our Joint Emergency Service Communications Center, it's graded already

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Speaker 2: one to a priority five. If it's a Priority one,

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Speaker 2: it'll get priority regardless of where that is in the territory.

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Speaker 2: Every remote police station is staffed. Every police station on

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Speaker 2: the territory start. So when we say short stuff, I

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Speaker 2: don't accept that that's the case. As I say, we

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Speaker 2: have had instances where we have had reduced starting numbers,

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Speaker 2: probably because of the actual physical impact of COVID people

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Speaker 2: being infected, impacting our workforce in certain areas. But again

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Speaker 2: we will continue to move our resources around to make

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Speaker 2: sure we've got sufficient coverage to support our community. Challenging time,

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Speaker 2: but we're working through it. We want to continue to

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Speaker 2: work with the community and take them along with us

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Speaker 2: on this ride with us to get come out the

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Speaker 2: other side of COVID.

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Speaker 1: All right, Northern Territory Police Assistant Commissioner Travis Willis, we

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Speaker 1: are going to have to leave it there. I appreciate

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Speaker 1: your time this morning. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Beattie Brother