Labor Party claims that the Napthine government has reduced frontline police have been dismissed as baseless.
Police Minister Kim Wells responded angrily to opposition police spokesman Wade Noonan’s claims and said numbers had, in fact, risen.
According to a spokesman for Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews, police data released under freedom of information showed some local police service areas (PSAs) had lost as many as 30 uniformed officers since 2010.
The data showed there were 20 fewer staff members in the Brimbank PSA in June 2014 than in November 2010 – from 172 to 152.
Melton staff numbers had dipped from 95 to 74 in the same timeframe.
Mr Wells said the numbers failed to take into acount specialist officers working in the area.
“The Chief Commissioner has set out to use the resources, including officers, of Victoria Police in the most efficient and effective way possible.
“For this reason there has been movement of officers across different districts within the state, where he sees fit, and where resources are best utilised to fight crime.
“This has resulted in more police, in every district in the state.
“It beggars belief that Labor fail to understand that this is beneficial for the every community in this state, making every community safer.”
Mr Wells said there were actually 1700 extra, front line police officers since 2010.
“Some of these extra 1700 police are taskforce officers tackling the changing face of crime, such as family violence, drugs, organised crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs,” he said.
Victoria Police backed up Mr Wells claims. A police spokeswoman said comparing PSA data from 2010 to 2014 provided an inaccurate picture of the number of officers serving communities.
Victoria Police’s sworn numbers to June 2014 paint a different picture to the data disseminated by Labor last week. The sworn numbers data, which is publicly available, is broken down into divisions, rather than by smaller PSAs.
It shows total staff for north-west metro region division 2 – which includes Brimbank and Melton – was up almost 40 per cent, from 271 members in November 2010 to 377 members in June 2014.
“In 2010, PSA data included police at stations as well as crime investigation, crime- scene and highway patrol police,” the police spokeswoman said. “The 2014 PSA data only includes police station personnel. It excludes those other specialist teams.
“However, those teams are still at the same locations, providing the same services across the division as they were in 2010. But they are now counted as part of the broader divisional resources.”
