The Northern Police District, which includes the North-East of the state from Launceston to George Town and out to St Helens, depicted a 23 per cent increase in the incidence of total crime offences.

In particular in Launceston, the annual offences per 10,000 population 1166 - the next closest was Hobart with 706 offences per 10,000 people. The Police Association of Tasmania has been extremely concerned about the overall increase in crime in Launceston for two main reasons:

For decades, the association and my predecessors have raised concerns with staffing levels in Launceston with both Tasmania Police and successive state governments and their respective ministers.

In simple terms, without enough police numbers on the streets of Launceston, the people of Launceston - families with children - are not safe enough.

Police recruitment does an excellent job selecting the right people to join police ranks. They strive to do their best to serve and protect the community and will work and stretch themselves mentally and physically to get the job done.

Importantly, for every two crimes committed, one is resolved. In a policing context anywhere in Australia, these are exemplary clearance rates. Police are not responsible for people's behaviour, but we are responsible for influencing their behaviour.

This can only be undertaken when there are sufficient numbers of officers on the front end with adequate discretionary time, proactively interacting with and deterring people from committing crime.

Launceston has a large number of "difficult" serious crimes to investigate and resolve which takes greater resources away from proactive intervention strategies to reactive resolution strategies.

The police resourcing response to investigate family violence incidents is significant, with the introduction of Family Violence legislation unintendedly consuming Launceston police resourcing exponentially.

The Northern District has one 24-hour police station at Launceston, whereas Hobart has four 24-hour police stations.

Even though the allocated strength of police numbers at Launceston is insufficient, the effective strength or "boots on the ground" is even lower. The effective strength doesn't include those on sick leave, workers compensation, maternity/paternity leave or educational courses.

Our members increasingly undertake the primary functions of other government agencies, as those agencies' capacity to respond outside working hours diminishes - for example, Ambulance Tasmania, Child Safety and mental health.

Our members don't have the luxury of saying we haven't got enough staff or it is not our job: after police, there is no one else.

There is, however, a long-term cost on the health and wellbeing of our members in operating like this. In Launceston, unfortunately, our members are subject to more violence and they are exposed to more traumatic and emotive charged incidents.

On top of this, there are confronted with increasing service demands upon fewer and fewer police numbers - but held to account against rigid corporate performance indicators.

Because Tasmania Police as a department does not move staff between geographic police districts - to deal with increasing or decreasing crime trends - our members in Launceston are just stretched more to overcome these additional challenges.

What is the answer to reducing the crime figures and looking after the health and wellbeing of our members in Launceston? It is a simple equation. By ensuring:

To give credit where credit is due, the state government has restored police numbers to the 2011 levels - post the cuts under the previous government. The state government has committed to increasing police staffing levels state-wide by 125 more police officers.

The Association is advocating that 31 of these officers are sent to the Northern District, with 20 of these posted to Launceston.

These proposed figures are similar to the government's allocation for the North.

The PAT would like to see action with these numbers being allocated as soon as possible, to keep our members safe and provide for a sustained reduction in the incidence of Launceston's total crime offences.