Another 200 retired officers could be re-joining Victoria Police if Labor retains power at the state election.
The pledge was announced on Monday, November 9th and follows the government’s efforts to recruit 400 “reservists” for administration duties at police stations statewide.
Member for Northern Victoria and government front-bencher, Jaclyn Symes joined two of the party’s local candidates to spruik the commitment outside Bendigo’s police station, where four reservists are already working.
“We know this policy works; we know it’s popular,” Ms Symes said.
“What it does is it re-opens police stations and it gets frontline police officers out from behind the desks, onto the frontline [and] serving the community, which is better for communities.”
Labor’s candidate for Bendigo East, Tim Rickwood was alongside at the press conference, saying police shouldn’t be “stuck behind a desk, doing paperwork”.
“I know personally that this approach works, because one of my volunteers last week was in a traffic incident, and they had to come here to Bendigo police station to get a report, and they were seen immediately by one of the four police reservists that are here at Bendigo [police] station,” Mr Rickwood said.
Photo: Tom Parry
Also at the event was the party’s Bendigo West hopeful, Brenton Baldwin who contrasted the policy with the Opposition’s plans to recruit officers from overseas.
“This [Labor] plan is going to see police stations open for longer with longer counter hours, and we challenge the Liberal-National coalition to actually see if they can actually come up with the same under their plan – we know that it won’t work,” Mr Baldwin said.
The expansion of the reservist recruitment program is expected cost $70 million, though Ms Symes wouldn’t be drawn on how many of those recruits would be working in regional Victoria.
“There are reservists that are already deployed to Mildura, Swan Hill, Seymour, Wangaratta, Echuca… but I do have to emphasise the point that politicians do not make operational decisions [regarding] where police officers go – that is a matter for the Chief Commissioner,” Ms Symes said.
In response to Labor’s announcement, the Coalition stated that more police stations had reduced their hours or closed under Labor’s watch.
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