Police Recruitment

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (14:35): Supplementary: do I understand that there has been a deliberate shift in policy so that 18 to 21 year olds now have much greater opportunity to virtually leave school and become a police recruit?

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (14:35): The way that I would answer that question is I think SAPOL is of the mind to make sure that they are drawing in as many applicants as possible. A cohort of the community that they are particularly interested in making sure are interested in applying in the first place are younger people. So, the answer to that question is yes. But ultimately, when SAPOL is making decisions around who comes into the police force, merit comes first, as everyone, I think, would reasonably expect.

At the same time, there is an underlying philosophy that the leadership of SAPOL has, which is that having broad and diverse and numerous numbers of applicants maximises the quality of people who end up coming through the front door. There is also a genuine value in having diversity amongst those people who start within SAPOL. As I have stated previously, that diversity comes in a number of different ways. I think having diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, various life experiences, all these things are important, because you want to have a police force that is diverse and reflects the community it serves, and young people have to be an important component of it, hence the decision to streamline the process for those people who are school leavers.

Now, if they get an ATAR score of 70 or higher, they can streamline and avoid the academic test process, which otherwise wasn't necessarily gaining anything extra for those applicants. Likewise with university graduates. It is a policy that is about making sure that we are removing hurdles or impediments for young people to be able to have an aspiration to at least try to get into the police force. That's a good thing. I think having young people working with older people and different levels of experience is a healthy thing. Starting in SAPOL young, which is something our current police commissioner did—he started as a 17 year old—starting young in such a rewarding career and being able to serve in the organisation throughout your life, while having a number of different jobs with the one employer, is a great opportunity. We want to encourage young people to apply and hence the policy change.