National is renewing its call for the Government to immediately end MIQ, with new information revealing that highly trained specialist Police officers are being taken away from their investigative and policing roles to sit outside MIQ facilities.

“Police Minister Poto Williams has revealed under written questioning that over 240 frontline Police officers have been sent to MIQ facilities around the country,” National’s Police spokesperson Mark Mitchell says.

“The numbers stretch back to June 2020 and show a clear ramping up in most districts. 

“Today we have 1900 Covid-19 cases in the community and fewer than 20 at the border. MIQ doesn’t make sense – there’s no reason why over 240 frontline officers should be guarding hotels when they could be in their communities investigating serious crime.

“They have been taken off units such as the Criminal Investigation Branch, child protection teams, family harm teams and the National Organised Crime group, to name a few.

“This is an atrocious use of highly trained, experienced Police officers at a time when we are seeing an over 50 per cent increase in gang numbers, a 21 per cent increase in violent crime and a 31 cent uptick in family harm investigations.

“The Government needs to end the lottery of human misery that is MIQ now and get these officers back doing what they are trained to do, and would rather do.”

Portfolio: Police (Hon Poto Williams)
Question: Since the establishment of the MIQ system in early 2020, how many Police have been deployed to managed isolation facilities, broken down by month, facility, district and Police unit (department) that the Police staff member was redeployed from?
Reply: I refer the member to the attached table. I am advised that for the period up to and including June 2020, Police generally adopted a variable response-based model in relation to MIQ, meaning that staff were not deployed to a specific MIQ facility, and as such figures relating to that period cannot be accurately provided.