{"id":7075,"date":"2023-08-08T17:45:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T05:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=7075"},"modified":"2023-08-08T17:45:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T05:45:36","slug":"nz-could-lose-hundreds-of-police-officers-to-queensland-police-assocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=7075","title":{"rendered":"NZ could lose ‘hundreds’ of police officers to Queensland – Police Assocation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of New Zealand police officers could be leaving for Australia, lured by a big boost in earnings, the New Zealand Police Association says.<\/p>\n

Australia’s Queensland Police Service has\u00a0launched<\/a>\u00a0what it is calling a “cheeky campaign” to poach New Zealand officers.<\/p>\n

It is promising warmer days and higher pay, including a $20,000 relocation bonus.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told\u00a0Morning Report<\/i>\u00a0that police retention was currently sitting around the same level as it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

“The attrition rates went down during Covid-19 so we did see less people leaving the police force, we’re now back to about the same level we were before Covid-19 which is still very low compared to other parts of the pubic serivce.<\/p>\n

“So we are doing a goob job around retaining our police.”<\/p>\n

But Police Association president Chris Cahill said it was an “attractive offer” and one that would be a “real risk” for New Zealand Police.<\/p>\n

“The $20,000 relocation allowance is pretty good, but you’re talking about a 30 percent pay increase pretty much straight away and that’s before you factor in things like paid overtime which we don’t have in New Zealand Police.”<\/p>\n

Cahill told\u00a0Morning Report<\/i>\u00a0he went to the police conference in Queensland to scope out what they were offering and expected them to push this offer “pretty hard”.<\/p>\n

“I think we could look at [losing] hundreds [of police officers], possibly.<\/p>\n

“And that might sound a bit alarmist but I’m not sure that isn’t the reality when we look at where we’re at in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n

‘It’s a cheeky campaign but it’s one that will be a real risk to New Zealand Police’ – Police Association president Chris Cahill<\/a><\/div>\n

Cahill said when a young officer joins the New Zealand Police today, it takes them 21 years before they get to the top of their pay band.<\/p>\n

For nurses that was seven years and for teachers it was about nine years, he said.<\/p>\n

In terms of working overtime, he said nurses get time-and-a-half or double, whereas officers only got time-in-lieu and even then, sometimes they were pressured to take it when it did not suit them.<\/p>\n

“There’s significant changes to police remuneration that’s required to actually make us competitive.”<\/p>\n

Globally, police were struggling to recruit and retain staff, Cahill said.<\/p>\n

New Zealand had been “very lucky” to buck that trend and manage to recruit more than 4000 new officers in the last six years, he said.<\/p>\n

“In other parts of the world, especially in Australia, they just haven’t been able to do that, that’s right across Australia. They’re carrying big vacanies eveywhere.”<\/p>\n

Cahill said it was only obvious that they would turn to New Zealand to poach employees.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Police Association president Chris Cahill.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But while the pay may be better, there were other things to consider, he said.<\/p>\n

“When I’ve spoken to the officers that have gone they certainly like the money but they said the professionalism isn’t the same.<\/p>\n

“They believe New Zealand is set up better as a police force and can offer more around learning and development and that sort of thing, and have a beter culture,<\/p>\n

“But in saying that, the risk profile in New Zealand for an officer has changed dramatically in the last ten years.”<\/p>\n

Cahill said the increase of firearms crime and the level of assaults were much higher now – things that officers had to weigh up.<\/p>\n

A look at the headlines in the last week would tell you that New Zealand simply was not safer than Australia anymore, he said.<\/p>\n

“The reality for New Zealand at the moment is that gang members, and others, are wandering streets with guns on a daily basis and have shown a willingness to use them.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think we can say that we’re safer than Australia anymore, it’s just not factually correct.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of New Zealand police officers could be leaving for Australia, lured by a big boost in earnings, the New Zealand Police Association says. Australia’s Queensland Police Service has\u00a0launched\u00a0what it is calling a “cheeky campaign” to poach New Zealand officers. It is promising warmer days and higher pay, including a $20,000 relocation bonus. Prime Minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7077,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075\/revisions\/7077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}