{"id":601309,"date":"2026-04-12T03:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601309\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T03:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T03:43:14","slug":"liberals-to-offer-5000-to-overseas-officers-to-relocate-under-plan-to-recruit-3000-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601309\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals to offer $5,000 to overseas officers to relocate under plan to recruit 3,000 police"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Victorian opposition has pledged to hire 3,000 additional police officers if elected, half of whom would be recruited from overseas.<\/p>\n

The plan involves offering relocation allowances of $5,000 for recruits to move to Victoria to take up positions.<\/p>\n

Half of the 3,000 recruits would be “experienced officers” from the United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The opposition also plans to reopen more than 40 police stations they say are “closing or operate on reduced hours”.<\/p>\n

\"Jess<\/p>\n

Liberal leader Jess Wilson said her party would “reopen” 40 police stations. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Liberal leader Jess Wilson said the plan aimed to fill hundreds of vacancies at Victoria Police.<\/p>\n

“Crime is at an all-time high, dozens of police stations are closed or operating on reduced hours and too many Victorians are unable to get a timely police response in their time of need,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Our plan will get more cops on the beat, reopen closed police stations and restore community safety across Victoria.”<\/p>\n

Shadow Police Minister Brad Battin said dedicated recruitment teams would be established to fast-track applicant checks.<\/p>\n

“Whether it’s New Zealand, England, Ireland, where they can come across here into Victoria, obviously we all know people want to live here,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It gives them the opportunity to come across but it also fills the void of recruiting in a shorter period of time.<\/p>\n

“They’ll still have to do programs, they’ll still have to go through the academy for parts of their training.”<\/p>\n

\"Victorian<\/p>\n

The opposition said overseas officers would be offered a relocation allowance of $5,000. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n

The Liberals said the plan replicates a scheme used in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

In 2024, WA Police reported it had fallen short of the scheme’s recruitment goal by about half <\/a>of the 950 officers it wanted to recruit.<\/p>\n

Some overseas officers who had applied to move to Australia under the scheme reported they failed to get a visa due to the Migration Act’s health requirement.<\/a><\/p>\n

The requirement makes it difficult for some people who have children with disabilities or health conditions to obtain a visa.<\/p>\n

Victoria’s Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny criticised the announcement, labelling it a “one-policy strategy” by the Coalition.<\/p>\n

She said the government had already made a record $4.5 billion investment into police, including an additional 3,600 police officers.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Victoria’s Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny says the government is working with Victoria Police’s chief commissioner to ensure a healthy police force. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“We know that recruitment is up, we understand applications are now at a near-record high and we will continue to back in our chief commissioner of police,” Ms Kilkenny said.<\/p>\n

“We have done significant work to reform and strengthen our bail laws and we know they’re having an impact.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian opposition has pledged to hire 3,000 additional police officers if elected, half of whom would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,4268,7173,44,1158,10839],"class_list":{"0":"post-601309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-election","11":"tag-liberals","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-police","14":"tag-policy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}