The Victoria Police Amendment (Police Reservists) Bill 2026 is a stopgap to ease the pressure on frontline staff of Victoria Police. The bill aims to expand the use of police reservists, allowing former officers to flexibly support police operations by taking carriage of administrative tasks.
While Rachel agreed upon the temporary measure to support Victoria Police at a time of police shortage, she reiterated several long-term solutions that would free up police time and resources. As in many previous addresses to parliament, Rachel recommended the treatment of illicit drug addiction as a health issue requiring harm reduction treatment instead of criminalisation. She noted that nearly $6 million and over 56,000 police hours are spent annually on criminalising possession of small quantities of cannabis.
Finally, Rachel advocated again for alternative first responder models, including the Alexis Family Violence Response Model which in its trial phase, has seen an 85% reduction in family violence recidivism.
Tuesday the 16th of June 2026,
Victorian Legislative Council
Rachel Payne (South-Eastern Metropolitan):
I am going to rise today to make a brief contribution on this bill, which introduces reforms to provide a police reservist scheme in Victoria. The proposed scheme will boost capacity and ease pressures on frontline police officers by enabling police reservists to perform a number of administrative and supportive tasks. We know that this is a temporary measure to plug the gap, essentially encouraging retired police officers and former serving police officers to come back on board into the police force to provide some administrative duties and take that pressure off frontline workers. We know that there are currently 1500 to 2000 unfilled positions within Victoria Police, so this very much is a temporary measure. The situation is not unique to Victoria. Staff retention and recruitment is a huge issue in every state in Australia. Police are leaving the police force in droves. That is due to toxic workplace culture, to burnout and to an ageing police force. But this gives us an opportunity to rethink where police resources are best utilised, and that is some of the contribution that I want to make today.
Alexis Family Violence Response Model and specialist first-responders
We know that police are currently being called out to deal with mental health issues and family violence issues and to deal with poor behaviour in out-of-home care. We think that they could be better utilised by looking at alternative first-responder models – mental health workers attending sites and specialised family violence support services attending. Currently when it comes to family violence – and as Mrs Hermans raised, in Casey City Council we have a huge issue with family violence, predominantly – police are being called out to family violence incidents as the first responders. Obviously for any sort of violent incident it should be that the police that are first responders, but often they do not have the specialised family violence training that is needed.
I have spoken many times in this chamber before about the Alexis model. What we are seeing with the Alexis model, where we have a specialised family violence unit supporting both perpetrators and victims of family violence, are very positive outcomes in that space. This model is currently only in a trial phase, and it is active in five family violence units within the police force. I have advocated time and time again for that model to be implemented in the south-east. As I indicated before, and as many in this chamber have spoken about, family violence in the south-east, and predominantly in the Casey council area, is highly prevalent. It is quite a unique space to be looking at, particularly as there is such a culturally diverse community in Casey. There are new developments in Casey. It is a fairly new community.
The evidence speaks for itself
When we do look at the Alexis model and how successful it is, in its trial phase only we are seeing an 85 per cent reduction in family violence recidivism. Think about the police time and resources that could save through ongoing recurring call-outs of police. When we have a specialised family violence unit allowing people to access services quickly and effectively, we are seeing a reduction in misidentification, we are seeing survivors being able to access the support services that they need and we are also seeing perpetrators access services they need to change their behaviour, because let us face it, not everyone wants to leave a family violence situation. They want the behaviour to change, and that is what these units are doing. They are specialised units, and they are effective. Interestingly, 75 per cent of victim-survivors felt that the program helped decrease family violence in their lives. This is an example of a way better model of operating where you have a specialised family violence unit working with the police and effectively taking away a lot of the burden on police to be those responders to family violence time and time again. This is about changing behaviours.
Treat substance abuse as a health issue, not a criminal issue
Another issue I want to raise in particular around rethinking police resources and how we could better utilise police resources is obviously drug law reform. Today the Penington Institute issued their Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2026, and what it showed, alarmingly, is that seven Australians are dying of overdose every day. These are preventable deaths. One person is dying every 3½ hours of overdose, and that data is from 2024. How is this related to police resources? Well, when you have police attending or stigma associated with criminalisation of drug use, you are less likely to see people who need access to health services provisions accessing those provisions.
I heard on the radio this morning Alison Ritter from the University of New South Wales, who is an illicit drug policy researcher and expert. What she says is that a much bigger share of government funding is spent on law enforcement than on harm reduction. She said:
We’ve got good evidence from research that we’ve done that it would be far better to refer people … into harm reduction and treatment services than put them through the criminal justice system.
She went on:
… only half the number of people who are seeking treatment are able to receive it …
She said:
There’s no other health-related condition where society says we’re only going to treat half the number of people who might require it. That’s a huge gap in our system.
Imagine if we decriminalised all drugs and treated drug use as a health issue, not a criminal issue. These were some of the experiences that we got to delve into as part of the Legal and Social Issues Committee. We went to the ACT and spoke to Scott Lee, who is the ACT police commissioner, and a number of public health experts around decriminalisation of cannabis but also decriminalisation of drugs more broadly. What the police commissioner identified was that the administrative burden that has been lifted because there is no longer the criminalisation of all drugs in the ACT has had a huge impact on their ability to put frontline services and frontline police officers where they are most needed, not dealing with victimless crimes around drug offences.
Reducing stigma increases treatment-seeking behaviour
When we reduce stigma, we know that those that need access to help and services do in fact access it. By removing stigma, by removing that criminalisation, you allow people to effectively move forward with accessing help where they need it. Obviously, with cannabis reform we still see a roughly 4000 Victorians arrested every year for cannabis possession. We are talking about small possession charges, under 50 grams. It is a young person having a joint on them and getting busted at the train station; it is someone at a rally having a little bit of weed in their pocket and getting picked up by the police. We know 4000 arrests a year has to be a huge weight on the police resourcing that we currently have, especially when we are down 2000 officers. Eighty per cent of the community believe that cannabis should not be a criminal offence – 80 per cent. I am not the only one saying this in this place.
When it comes to the cost of police time and resources, the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Office, recently did some costings where they indicated the operating cost of policing cannabis-related crimes in Victoria is estimated to be approximately $5.8 million per year. That accounts for around 56,800 hours of police time. If we equate that to a full-time workforce, that is 27 full-time police officers – and that is just on cannabis reform. That would be an extremely low result as to an estimate, I would think.
More discussion needed on police resource allocation
In summary, I think that we can identify that a huge amount of money is currently spent on policing, and I am not too sure that it actually makes our community much safer. I think we have a real opportunity in this place to talk more about where police resources are fundamentally needed, and we know that that is in relation to any violence within the community. Police should be the first responders and right there protecting our community. There is no denying people should feel safe in their community. But it is time that we rethink some of these outdated laws that currently impede police from actually being those frontline support workers where they are needed, in comparison to drug-related offences.
Related:
- Cautions Not Cuffs: Time to Make Existing Police Policy the Law – Rachel Payne
- Cannabis decriminalisation frees up police resources – Rachel Payne
- Police responses to family and domestic violence – Rachel Payne
