New Zealand police say they are confident they are going well in recruiting 500 more officers. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Patrice Allen
Australian efforts to recruit Kiwi police officers are ramping up again, but NZ Police say it is nothing new and they are focused on their own recruitment drives.
A recruitment officer for Northern Territory Police told Checkpoint they would be coming here on a roadshow this month to talk about the higher salaries and housing allowances on offer.
Northern Territory recruitment officer Brett Wilson said they were not trying to steal Kiwi officers, but ensuring the officers knew their options.
"We're looking at making sure people know the options, that there's more to Australia than just the East Coast, the Northern Territory is a place out there to also look at an option should they want to come to Australia."
First year constables in the Northern Territory earn a salary of $111,000, compared to $83,000 here - the salary quoted on the new cops website in New Zealand.
After five years in the force an officer would get $121,000 in Northern Territory, compared to $91,000 here.
On top of that there is also a housing allowance of up to $34,000 for officers who hop the ditch.
NZ Police assistant commissioner Tusha Penny told Checkpoint that pushes to recruit Kiwi officers were not anything new, and was not only being done by the Northern Territories.
"Northern Territories have been looking and actively looking and coming over here for about the past decade to look at potentially recruiting our officers."
"This is not just isolated to Northern Territories. We have a number of Australian jurisdictions who come over here and regularly looking at our officers."
Penny said although they did not have the exact numbers, it was only a small proportion of NZ police who were going to Australia.
NZ Police later provided Checkpoint with figures that suggest hundreds of staff have taken up jobs across the ditch since the beginning of 2023.
Between January 2023 and April 2025, NZ Police say they received 675 requests for background checks, known as vetting requests, from Australian police jurisdictions. In the same period, they say 212 police staff resigned within the 12 months of the request for their information.
The figures shed some light on the potential numbers leaving the country to take jobs in Australia but NZ Police stress it is a partial picture.
"It is not possible to know exactly how many current or former employees have moved to Australia, only the number who have resigned that have also requested a vetting request via an Australian Police agency."
Current or former police employee can make their own request for a report from the police integrity and conduct team, and pass it on personally to Australian police recruiters.
Police say staff might request their vetting history for any number of reasons and "it is not necessarily an indication of their intention to join an Australian Police agency".
Penny noted many Kiwi officers also return from over the ditch.
"We've got about 140 officers in our rejoin pipeline, who actually want to come back into New Zealand please and a healthy cohort of those from Australia."
She said the police force here was continuing to see increasing application rates.
"In the last 12 months we've had on average 735 applicants a month to come into New Zealand Police. If we compare that to 12 months previous, it was 440.
"We've still got so many good and great New Zealanders who really wanna sign up and put on a police uniform to work in our community."
Officers who return from overseas do have to go through a rejoin process.
"Their previous experience gets looked at, and where they want to go. So we have staff who are full time really looking at the rejoin policy."
Penny said the policy takes into account a number of factors.
"We look at the previous experience in New Zealand police, we look at what they've done since they've been away - that's for the internal pipeline and our rejoins coming back."
She said while New Zealand police were confident they were going well in recruiting 500 more officers, there was no set time-frame, and they are instead focused on the quality of new officers.
"We've been really clear that we're not giving a time frame... when we get the 500, we will get the 500"
Penny said she was confident the NZ police force would continue to grow, despite the push for overseas recruitment.
"We're all about supporting our Australian cousins, but I need to be really clear that well, you know we are, we are growing our police officers.
"We're really proud of our people who in every single town across the country we've just got the most amazing front-line who are stepping up to police in our communities."
