New South Wales police and the health department are expected to sign a new agreement on how to deal with mental health incidents, as the police union demands officers no longer be the “default response for every crisis”.
“There is an MoU that is very close to being signed,” the police minister, Yasmin Catley, told police union members on Tuesday when discussing mental health call-outs.
“The commissioner and I are working very closely with [NSW] Health to get that work done. I know the workload that’s put on you as a result of being everything to everyone.”
Catley was speaking at a Police Association of NSW conference on Tuesday, alongside the premier, Chris Minns, and the police commissioner, Mal Lanyon.
The government is considering an approach similar to the UK’s “right person, right care” model, which sees health workers rather than police attend mental health call-outs if there is no crime being committed and no risk to life.
An internal review conducted by NSW police released in September 2024 recommended following the UK approach. Police admitted in the review that when they attended mental health incidents, they were often “an escalating factor”, and it would be better if experts were deployed instead.
In June 2024, a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s mental health system urged police to improve mandatory mental health training for officers and “explore” becoming second responders. It was suggested that health workers be the first people called to mental health incidents.
Police and the government had been under pressure to enact reforms after the deaths of Clare Nowland, Steve Pampalian, Jesse Deacon and Krista Kach in 2023 while under mental health distress. The pressure grew again after public housing resident Collin Burling died last year after he begged for help while restrained by police.
Minns suggested in his Tuesday speech that there could be announcements soon on mental health call-outs and, separately, prisoner transport.
“I’m conscious of the challenges you are facing every day, with a broad mission, with more responsibilities, with a desperate need for more officers in the field,” the premier said in Wollongong.
“We’re hearing that loud and clear, and we have to say more, and will say more in the near future.”
The NSW opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, who also spoke at the conference, said it was “beyond time that we had a concrete response from the government on this”.
“Officers are plugging too many gaps in a mental health system that is in crisis, and that is not your job,” she told the police association.
The union’s president, Kevin Morton, said on Tuesday: “We need mental health reforms that stop police becoming the default response for every crisis.”
He took a swipe at Corrective Services NSW when stating police had become “Uber drivers for those in custody”. “Corrections NSW are the experts in prisoner transport and it is time they took that role on once and for all,” Morton said.
“We need reform in the courts,” he said. “In dispensing justice, it is wrong to expect those charged to languish in cells due to the current court sitting hours. Then expect our members to take the responsibility and consequences of those prisoners being held in not fit-for-purpose complexes.”
NSW is locking up a record number of people under the Minns government, which enacted major bail reforms in response to domestic violence. There were more than 14,000 people in jail in March.
The prison population grew by 1,200 in the four months to March, which was more than in the previous four years, according to Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data released last week.
The abrupt rise in the prison population began in November, a month after Lanyon became commissioner.
Bocsar data shows the surge is due to an increase in enforcement activity by NSW police, mostly around domestic violence offending, rather than any increase in crime.
Catley told police officers during her speech: “You’d have to be fair to say that the corrections minister might think that you’re actually doing too good a job, because his jails are packed, and that is absolutely attributable to your efforts.”
Lanyon said on Tuesday that crime was falling or stable across most major crime areas. But he said “perceptions of crime” were as important as statistics.
“The results show that our police, despite their challenges, are having a significant impact, but perceptions of crime matter as much as the statistics. Not only do people deserve to be safe, they need to feel safe,” the commissioner said.
“Over the next two years, our focus on crime prevention and public safety, in particular organised crime, youth and regional crime, domestic and family violence, and road trauma, will be relentless.”
Lanyon said he was “acutely aware of staffing shortages” but said “for the first time in many, many years, more officers are joining than leaving”.
Minns announced at the conference that a fourth annual class would be run at the police academy in Goulburn to increase police recruitment by 30% in a bid to fill staff vacancies.
