New pay deal for NSW cops a bad sign for ACT Policing recruitment: union

NSW police have announced it will pay recruits under training at its Goulburn academy $30,984 over their 16-week study period.

This works out to $1360 a week plus superannuation and an estimated $380 in award-based allowances.

Live-in recruits at the Goulburn academy previously received only a $3000 on-campus allowance during training, but upon graduation received a generous starting salary of $80,733, plus shift penalties, as a probationary constable.

This compares with the Australian Federal Police probationary constable on a band two starting salary of between $59,003 and $63,508. The AFP previously held the advantage over NSW of paying live-in recruits throughout their 24-week training course.

But under this latest NSW announcement, that key monetary incentive has vanished, federal police association president Alex Caruana says.

"If the AFP wants to meet its recruitment targets then its needs to think outside the square ... Reputation alone won't attract people," he said.

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The AFP provides officers to police the territory under a contract with the ACT government and the latest NSW announcement adds further pressure to lift AFP starting salaries in the middle of its latest enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations, in which the ACT's Chief Police Officer, Neil Gaughan, is a lead negotiator.

The NSW government has been under significant pressure to rebuild its frontline police services and had been haemorrhaging officers, as has the federal police, over the border into Queensland where that police service last month announced the biggest recruitment drive in the state's history.

As part of its drive to boost numbers, the Queensland Police Service was unashamedly seeking to poach sworn officers from elsewhere, offering $20,000 towards the cost of relocation from other jurisdictions, plus $20,000 to pay off any HECs debts.

NSW wants to boost police numbers by about 1500 as quickly as possible. Commissioner Karen Webb described the new trainee payment as a gamechanger and the "most attractive incentive we've been able to offer for many years".

The NSW government has admitted vacancies were "placing significant strain and an increased workload on serving officers" and it was "critical that something is done to address this".

The new pay deal for recruits, it said in a statement, was "an important workforce incentive to encourage more people to take up a career in the NSW Police Force".

"This will unlock opportunities for a more diverse range of recruits including mature age students who have existing financial responsibilities, woman, particularly women with families, and people from low-income households who simply can't afford to study for four months with no income," the statement said.

In this year's June ACT budget, the territory government committed $107 million to growing the city's police numbers by 126 over the next four years.

The ACT is used as a training ground for the federal police's sworn workforce. Around 1300 have graduated from the AFP College at Barton over the past five years.

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