ADDITIONAL police for Orange have received fresh backing with Orange City Council to seek a meeting with the commissioner.
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Councillors have supported the extra 14 sworn officers, with two already guaranteed, dog unit and regional enforcement squad requested by the Police Association of NSW and Orange MP Phil Donato.
Association representative Adam Piffarelli addressed the council on Tuesday night to reiterate Orange’s below-average strength, confirming there were only two officers patrolling between midnight and midday from Sunday to Thursday – three others remain at the station but cannot be deployed.
“Orange is 35 per cent busier than what’s happening over in Bathurst, just purely someone picking up the phone and calling police for assistance, but due to Orange being so understaffed our officers are actually doing 66 per cent more work than our brothers and sister only 45 kilometres east of us [during a year],” he said.
“What this means for us is that officers are being placed at higher risk of burnout – looking at the numbers, our police are doing 174 jobs per officer whereas in Bathurst they're doing 110 jobs per officer.”
Officers are being placed at higher risk of burnout – looking at the numbers, our police are doing 174 jobs per officer whereas in Bathurst they're doing 110 jobs per officer.
- Police Association of NSW representative Adam Piffarelli
Crime prevention committee chairman and councillor Jason Hamling said police deserved the support and he did not want a meeting in a month’s time.
“We need a meeting ASAP because what’s happening in Orange with the numbers is unacceptable,” he said.
“We shouldn’t have one car crew covering 45,000 people for any amount of time – it doesn’t matter if it’s six o’clock and night, six o’clock in the morning, whatever it is, there should be more than one car crew.”
Councillor Joanne McRae said she was lucky she was uninjured and witnesses stayed with her to wait for police to turn up when a driver ran a red light and hit her car at the intersection of Summer and Anson streets.
“While triple-0 said there was police on the way, I was standing by the side of the road waiting,” she said.
“Even tonight thinking about how packed that car park was [outside the Civic Centre] and as a female leaving this building late at night, thinking quite seriously about where is it appropriate for me to park?
“If we don’t have the police resources to respond, then what is the reaction of somebody waiting by a mobile phone for assistance that doesn’t come?”
Councillor Scott Munro said they also needed to remember police covered a much wider area than just Orange.
The meeting with Commissioner Mick Fuller will seek to have the Central West Police District chosen as one of the first to have its needs filled.
The association is currently circulating a petition.
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