My Government is continuing to rebuild our essential services by entering into an historic agreement to pay our Student Police Officers while they study at the Goulburn Police Academy.

This agreement is a first step to addressing the ongoing critical shortfall in police numbers and is designed to encourage more people to take up a career in the NSW Police Force.

Police in NSW are being severely strained by a huge shortfall in police numbers with 1,500 vacancies – a legacy of the previous Liberal Government’s mismanagement of police recruitment and retention.

These vacancies are placing a significant strain on our police and increasing the workload on current officers. It is crucial that something is done to address and fix this.

That is why I am introducing this new financial incentive for future police officers.

As your local Member of Parliament, I am committed to improving the working conditions for our frontline workers to prevent them from leaving their profession and attracting more people to these vital roles.

NSW Police do an incredible job to keep us safe, but the truth is they are stretched and overworked, and we cannot fix that if we do not recruit and retain more officers.

More importantly, having more police officers is fundamental to keeping our local community safe.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to our police officers and this agreement makes it clear that my Government supports our police force 100 per cent.

Finally, I want to send a message to the people of Kogarah that we have a clear focus to manage the Government's finances responsibly so we can provide support when you need it most and improve the frontline services that we all rely on, now and into the future.

Yours sincerely,

The Hon. Chris Minns MP
Premier of New South Wales
Member for Kogarah