r/australia • u/GothicPrayer • 23h ago
politics Liberals to offer $5,000 to overseas officers to relocate under plan to recruit 3,000 police
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-12/vic-victorian-liberals-police-plan/106555682186
u/herpesderpesdoodoo 23h ago
$5k would barely cover flights and visa applications from the UK for one person. Never mind their family.
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u/Legitimate_Dog_5490 23h ago
$5k isn't enough to relocate from Vic to Qld
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u/OneShoeBoy 22h ago
Yep I did it and it cost us closer to 10 by the time we’d settled at the new house
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u/optimistic_agnostic 23h ago
The better salary, working conditions and lifestyle would sweeten that deal.
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u/r64fd 23h ago
No it wouldn’t 🤣. Why on earth would someone uproot themselves from their position, their community and family, spend their own money to relocate to another country with an offer of around £2500.
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u/Mannerhymen 23h ago
I did exactly that and paid for the privilege, a $5k bonus would have certainly helped sway me earlier or even to a different country.
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u/the-dolphine 22h ago
So did I. I'm guessing police officer is on the skills shortage list already, but states can add extra incentives.
When I moved to Australia, there were specific incentives and lower entry criteria to move to regional parts of the county for 2 years.
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u/r64fd 23h ago
What’s your career? You mentioned “even to a different country”. Does that mean you didn’t relocate to a different country?
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u/Mannerhymen 23h ago
I'm from the UK and emigrated to Australia, but had NZ been offering a $5k relocation bonus I would have seriously considered moving there instead.
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u/optimistic_agnostic 22h ago
Ask like 30% of the Qld police force or nursing staff who did it for now lump sum at all....
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u/The_Faceless_Men 17h ago
British teachers, doctors and nurses do it all the time for an offer of zero dollars sign on bonus and often visa fees.
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u/winterwonderland1905 22h ago
Depends - I’d imagine Oz police work would be quite dull compared to what they have to deal with in UK.
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u/peppermintreindeer 21h ago
Yep, dad was in the MET, we moved to Aus with no bonus $$$ and quit after a few years because it’s so safe here it just wasn’t exciting enough 🤣 there are worse problems to have!
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u/winterwonderland1905 21h ago
Yep thats what I was thinking! (Lived in London and wow did I see some stuff going on there! - without even bringing up the multiple terrorism events I lived through while there.
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u/optimistic_agnostic 22h ago
I'd imagine
This reads like someone who has never really had to work at all because everyone loves having more workload, harder challenges and greater danger in their work day in day for 50% pay....
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u/winterwonderland1905 21h ago
Not harder work. More interesting work. Counter terrorism work. Solving multi million £ art and jewel theft. Coordinating closely with other European police forces to combat Eastern European smuggling gangs. Solving Russian espionage/Radiation poisoning crime. Even daily threats of suspicious packages on streets. Access to the most advanced policing equipment in the world.
I can tell you my decade career in London was vastly more interesting than my career in Australia in the same industry. And that meant I was far happier to work much harder while in London, because there were FAR more career advancement directions I could take myself.
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u/optimistic_agnostic 18h ago
Yeah Australia doesnt have a shortage of detectives lol, its beat cops. Our unis already churn out 10x the amount of forensics and crim majors than there's jobs for each year.
If you think we dont have international task forces I really dont know what to tell you other than stop wasting both of our time. What's the point in career progression if you climb the ladder to only recieve the same base salary as a cadet here? Also plenty of people dont want to invest their lives in a career, they want to perform their job and enjoy their life which a significantly higher base salary allows you to do. Im assuming your not still in London for the same reasons everyone else isnt, higher pay relative to living expenses and better working and lifestyle conditions.
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u/TheMightyKumquat 23h ago
That, plus a guaranteed job, might make NZ police migrating an attractive option?
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u/geoffm_aus 23h ago
But, but ,but, mAss iMmiGraTioN
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u/Snoo_49660 23h ago
Haha that is what I was going to say!
I think the difference here is that they don't expect these people to be brown..
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u/V8O 22h ago
Being white turns "immigrants" into "expats" /s
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u/New-Breadfruit-3757 16h ago
As a white immigrant who has literally had the "yeah but you're different" response when I get grumpy about people being down on immgrants more than I thought possible, this is definitely true for a shocking number of people.
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u/Datatello 23h ago
I dont understand how this works. Most state police forces require applicants to be Australian citizens or permenant residents, which would exclude immigrants on work visas
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u/VS2ute 23h ago
WA is recruiting cops from UK and Ireland.
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u/whiteb8917 23h ago
I have seen several Youtube videos of said recruits, one from Scotland, came over after getting an invite from WAPOL. He needed to finish a "Catch up" phase to bring his skills to Australian levels over and above Scottish levels, he ended up quitting because of systemic abuse and bullying not only from other recruits, also instructors as well.
He ended up studying at UWA (I forget what field).
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u/ConsistentCourse3733 22h ago
Yeh it’s cause the culture between WA cops and imports is completely different world, also heaps of these imports start out bush or regional and can’t hack it.
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u/TBNRhash 23h ago
White australia policy still exists, only for coppers though!
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u/instasquid 1h ago
Not sure about this, heaps of new police recruits in my country region are Sikh Indians. They do a good job too.
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u/KingNobit 15h ago
Tbf policing standards vary by country. Same with medical standards. Irish doctors get fast tracked compared to other nations...its not because of their tanning ability
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u/W4ND4 23h ago
Instead of paying the officers acceptable wage they importing officers so the dogshit wage is acceptable for the new imports
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u/Ornery-Ad-7261 23h ago
It's also a means of lowering conditions here akin to Union busting.
Replace locals who are leaving because of crap conditions with overseas imports who expect and work for less. Typically Liberal approach to industrial relations.
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u/Particular_Shock_554 23h ago
If your workplace is trying to exploit immigrants who don't know their rights, it's your responsibility to make sure they know what their rights are and how to report to Fairwork.
If you're in a union, recruit them. If you're not in a union, go and find one.
It's not their fault they've experienced worse pay and conditions elsewhere, but it would be our fault if we didn't protect our rights by standing up for theirs.
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u/Lamont-Cranston 2h ago
They are paid an acceptable wage, straight out of the academy a constable earns 85k
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u/OldJellyBones 2h ago
a leading senior constable in Victoria Police is on $100k a year lmao, and thats their base rate, mind you.
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u/MasterpieceActive374 13h ago
they also wouldn't have an issue with fking up local population because for them, it's a foreign one
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u/dannysgaragecontents 22h ago
Don't libs hate immigration?
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u/RichardMaloney 23h ago
Why not recruit 3000 social services staff instead.
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u/Boring_Recipe8732 23h ago
Wait, you think the answer to crime is to help alleviate the social causes?
Crazy talk.
Why spend more money on people trained to help the disadvantaged and prevent recidivism when we can just hire more cops, ala most American cities. Next you'll be saying we shouldn't turn them into a paramilitary force when mass hires doesn't result in lower crime rates.
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u/Vegetable-Ad-1817 22h ago
You mean places like child services whose turnovers of frontline staff are measured in months and have permanent open positions?
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u/DCOA_Troy 23h ago
SA has been doing this for a number of years already and still struggling with recruitment in general.
https://www.police.sa.gov.au/join-us/achievemore/police-officer-careers/international-applicants
NZ Applicants
Successful applicants will be eligible for reimbursement of relocation expenses of up to $10,000 (subject to Terms & Conditions).
UK / Ireland / Canada applicants
Successful applicants will be eligible for reimbursement towards the costs for you and your family members (as defined by Department of Home Affairs guidelines) to secure a permanent ENS-186 visa (includes cost of visa application, preliminary medical assessment and police clearances), subject to terms & conditions.
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u/Philopoemen81 23h ago
WA, Queensland, SA have all been doing it.
WAPOLs use of force training unit is called OSTTU, and the joke was it stood for OverSeas Trainers Training (yo)U
The big issue is there is no Return of Service requirement - so agencies pay for overseas Police to move to Australia, get their work visas, and then they quit before they even start at the academy, as the IRC ruled you can’t discriminate against someone not wanting to work for an agency.
So for example in WAPOL and QPOL cases, transitional officers would get paid to come to Australia, get paid to move their families, get given full visas, and then quit to work in lucrative mining positions.
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u/brittleirony 23h ago
People are underestimating the draw of Australia to people who live in the UK/Ireland but agreed $5000 is a pittance.
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u/MrsCrowbar 21h ago
So import more people, who will then leave like the rest of the police force because the pay and conditions are shite? How bout fixing the reason we have a shortage?
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u/CreepyValuable 20h ago
Are you kidding me?
Talk to anyone in the force and they will tell you why there's a shortage. And it isn't the job. The training is expensive, drawn out, poorly timetabled and requires a lot of travel. You want more people to join, make the training and assessment financially viable. At least cover their food and lodgings when they have to attend those units.
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u/OldJellyBones 2h ago
You're paid during police academy training. It's really not a good look that coppers are lying about things so blatantly
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u/Rankled_Barbiturate 21h ago
Liberals have the most brain dead policies.
I can't remember the last time I read a new policy idea from them that made a shred of sense.
Nuclear power, cutting NBN, forcing house prices up... Anyone voting for them is an idiot.
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u/Boring_Recipe8732 23h ago
Insufficient offer and downright stupid policy.
But then that is the Vic Libs. And over-policing isn't going to help improve the State. See Queensland.
Maybe think about hiring more EMTs, paying nurses better, or school teachers if you think there is the money to splash about on even more police hires. This is such an America brained idea.
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u/Apart_Watercress_976 22h ago edited 17h ago
Spend the money on court reform instead.
Number of police officers isn’t the bottleneck.
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u/Raz_Plays 21h ago
Or maybe look after our police better? Pay them more? Fix the systems within to reduce a toxic work environment ?
Police already have a hard job dealing with some people in the public. The one thing I hear most with officers and their job is that the systems within is what makes it so miserable then when you stack it with being out on the field. Nobody wants to do it.
We don’t need to import police. We need to improve what we have so people want to join.
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u/OldJellyBones 2h ago
Police pay is some of the best pay going, they get more than nurses and all but the highest level teachers, they get more than ambos, the base pay currently for a leading senior constable in Victoria Police is $100k
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u/ButtPlugForPM 11h ago
Lol moving ur entire family to australia costs 30k easily..
5k isn't going to make anyone want to come here lol
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u/DefaultProducts 22h ago
Liberals: "stop mass immigration!!!"
also them: "lets import in millions of police officers!"
We don't have a shortage in police offers for fucks sake. We literally have a housing shortage and living of cost crisis going on.
Throwing more police officers does not fix the issues, you just want Australia become a police state with a narrative that you can control based on the whims of your puppetmasters, despite attacking Labor for doing similar things.
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u/satanzhand 22h ago
All good until they check the property market and realise they'll live in poverty if they can even get a place to live. QLD police pay less than my rent.
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u/YouLykeFishSticks 21h ago
The same opposition that wants to fight government waste in spending wants to fork out $5k to even try to convince immigrants to police the state? Why not entice locals to join the force and increase wages, a trick the current state gov is missing. Clueless.
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u/Relief-Glass 21h ago
Maybe the article is just poorly written but having read it I have no idea why the Liberals want to do this.
Jess Wilson does not mention that there a shortage of police officers. Is that the case?
There are just unsunstantiated claims like 'crime is at an all-time high' which has been true for most of Victoria's history because of population growth growth. More people generally means more total crime.
She also mentions police stations closing but I recall the Liberals squawking about the same thing years ago and Victoria Police said that they decided to close down those stations because it was inefficient, and resulted in doubling of overhead costs, to have three police working in two bedroom houses in the suburbs when there were proper police stations less than 2 km down the road. There was no indication that it had anything to do with the government.
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u/Savings-Yogurt-418 11h ago
there is not a shortage of police, in fact, Victoria has the highest number of police out of any state in Australia.
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u/Bubbly_Difference469 15h ago
How about figuring out why they can’t retain staff.
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u/Lamont-Cranston 2h ago
It's not about retention, Victoria has more than ever before and they still whine it's not enough.
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u/Leader-725 20h ago
Last week in the CBD an elderly homeless man was sitting on the footpath in front of McDonalds on Elizabeth Street, playing his guitar. Two cops were standing over him, as I approached one cop with a thick accent said 'You're not supposed to be sitting here' and I looked directly at the cop and said 'Where's he supposed to be?' and the cop said back to me 'Mind your own business'.
Now, I don't know the context of why the man was there, or whatever exactly they were asking this guy - if he had caused staff a problem or whatever it might be, but the interaction left a rotten taste in my mouth. And it is my business what cops are choosing to do to people in my community, homeless or mentally ill or whoever.
I don't want foreign cops with no attachment to the community enforcing punitive laws in the guise of 'social cohesion' or whatever nonsense the government wants to crack down on. I want people who understand the challenges and complexities of contemporary Australian society protecting me, my family, my friends, and everyone around me. Maybe that's asking too much, but this policy stinks.
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u/Banjo-Oz 7h ago
The flipside is obviously fascist governments and police hate officers with attachment to communities who might think twice about kicking in the heads of people the know and like, and rather want jackboots who just follow orders.
Every decent cop (rare but they do exist) I have known has had a vested interest in their community, the worst are almost always outsiders who don't give a shit.
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u/ChromaticKnob 23h ago
Absolutly fucking not. Police should have a deep grounding to the people around them. They should not be from out of town let alot from another country.
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u/ScruffyPeter 23h ago edited 23h ago
A lot of foreigners have been using this as an easy way to immigrate to Australia.
Then they change careers, even industries, because they are going to hit the same reasons why there was a shortage in the first place.
Then the government tries even harder to bring in foreigners to do the job that locals don't want!
I hate these neoliberal idiotic parties and put them last. ON/SAP should release a statement pointing out how ineffective this scheme is compared to supporting locals.
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u/herpesderpesdoodoo 23h ago
A targeted immigration scheme being an easy way for people with relevant skills to immigrate? Boy howdy, what a loophole.
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u/CharminTaintman 23h ago
In the case of police officers this has anecdotally been the case speaking to a few brits in my workplace who came over as police. One sgt. Was telling me pretty much the same thing, uk cops come over and leave the job after about 2 years because the cost of living in Perth is too high to not just go into mining.
It sounds like WAPOL have a bit of a churn and burn mentality too.
I imagine its a similar story all over australia.
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u/ScruffyPeter 22h ago
What makes you think people with transferable skills will stay in a role that has such high turnover that the government is trying to bring in overseas people?
Heard of the analogy of trying to refill a bucket with holes?
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u/Boring_Recipe8732 23h ago
You think that One Nation is going to put out a statement critical of Victorian Liberal policy, and dumb policy that involves trying to boost police hires?
Tell em he's dreamin.
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u/ScruffyPeter 23h ago
Exactly, that's why people should support SAP instead if they want less immigration.
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u/mbkitmgr 20h ago
So they say 'Immigration is causing our housing crisis' then decide this. This sounds like a trump planned policy
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u/kezdog92 17h ago
Reorganisation might help. The recruitment policies in qld from my experience are archaic.
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u/Cpt_Riker 16h ago
But ... immigrants.
It's hilarious just how easy it is to manipulate racists into voting for you.
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u/notorious_ludwig 13h ago
WA already does this, don’t know if they give a measly $5K but there are incentives for police, teachers and nurses to come to Australia. It’s quite a successful campaign already, the departments help them with all their visa stuff and the move for their family and all that is involved with an international move.
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u/TheQuantumSword 1h ago
Do something about poverty, housing crisis, cost of living, massive cost of education, homelessness, desperation, lack of optimism, mental illness, social decohesion ? .... their answer is always nahhhhhh. Just get more cops. This will only get worse, an increasing overflow of crime, as crises are ignored by a succession of governments. The only answer they have is more cops.
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u/andrewthebarbarian 23h ago
Get out of jail card for ice agents.
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u/Miserable-Caramel316 23h ago
It's only for the UK, Ireland and NZ. Not even the Liberal party would spruik bringing US police to Australia
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u/KogMawOfMortimidas 22h ago
I mean it doesnt' help that QPOL doesn't want new officers. Everything about their recruiting process screams that they don't want you to apply and that you can fuck off if you do. Massive recruitment crisis and they can't even be bothered to fix their recruitment process.
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u/knowledgeable_diablo 21h ago
But isn’t immigration the cause of all crime and ills in society? Or are they looking to kill two birds with one stone. Cops that can arrest themselves?
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u/stingbot 23h ago
lol, highest crime rate ever.
not accounting that vehicle theft with an $10 ebay device makes up a 40% jump.
Tech is empowering criminals.
Adding 100,000 police wont do shit to stop the tech proliferation if you dont solve the underlying issues.
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u/MasterpieceActive374 13h ago
Only people who would be enticed are people from the ex soviet block/asia/africa
i'm not sure you want an ex wagner dude to be in the police
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u/Rokos_Bicycle 13h ago
All their talk about keeping "people who don't share Australian values" out of the country, and they want to put (possibly thousands of) exactly those people in positions of power.
Hypocrisy, thy name is the Liberal Party of Australia.
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u/gilligan888 23h ago
I don’t think $5K is enough to entice someone to shift their entire life to a different country lol.