The Police Association wants mandatory two-person patrols introduced in the state.

Tasmanian police can currently respond to incidents in single or two-officer patrols.

Police association president Pat Allen said he hoped  a model would be signed off  by Tasmania Police this week, to ensure police officers were as safe as possible, particularly when responding to violent incidents.

Victorian Police believe the shooting of the Melbourne policeman may be linked to two attacks on family members of slain underworld figure Carl Williams.

Police say they are investigating possible links between two incidents on Tuesday morning when gunshots were fired into George Williams’ Broadmeadows home at 3.30am and a policeman was shot 10 minutes later at Moonee Ponds.

The constable, 31, took a number of shotgun pellets to his head but was awake and in a stable condition in the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

‘‘This unfortunate incident [in Victoria] shows that two-officer patrols are safer and [I urge] Tasmania Police to finalise a safe response model quickly,’’ Constable Allen said.

‘‘We’re not talking about not having any single-member responses, we’re talking about a safe response model. And that doesn’t mean just two-person patrols either; it means if there’s an incident, we dispatch the resources that are required to deal with that incident.

‘‘The state needs to do all it can to protect officers, as it 

did in Victoria by introducing the mandatory two-person patrols.’’

Police Association of Victoria secretary Ron Iddles said the shooting in Melbourne’s north-west on Tuesday morning showed that police officers should not be working alone.

Tasmania Police acting assistant commissioner Mark Mewis said single and two-officer patrols were used in Tasmania to assist in managing response times and the capacity of police to attend call-outs.

‘‘Tasmania Police has reviewed its current model and will soon be implementing a revised single-member response model,’’ he said.