Tasmanian police officers are still stuck sitting in court "babysitting" prisoners, adding more pressure to an already stretched department.
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Despite the ongoing health crisis, and increased demand on Tasmania Police to enforce COVID-19 rules and restrictions, court security and prisoner transport remains its responsibility in the state's North-West.
The issue of police in Tasmanian supreme courts has been an argument between the government and the police union for nearly two decades.
While police are no longer required to perform general security duties in Launceston, following a campaign by The Examiner in 2017, officers are still sitting in the Burnie Supreme Court.
Within one month of the campaign launch, the state government announced its own "Police out of Courts project".
As part of the project, Corrections Minister Elise Archer announced six new correctional officers would be recruited to fulfil security duties at the Launceston Supreme Court, and allow police officers to get back on the beat.
In Hobart, security guards were already employed and correctional officers were responsible for prisoner transport duties, leaving Burnie as the only supreme court in the state where police were still required to do the job.
In 2018, Ms Archer said the delay in removing police on the North-West was "partly due to a lack of a remand centre in the region".
The state government has since committed $15 million to upgrading the Burnie Supreme and Magistrates courts, with $5.9 million of that funding brought forward last week to allow for works to commence earlier than initially planned.
The upgrades, however, do not include a facility for remandees.
Both Launceston and Hobart have remand facilities, and the construction of a new $70 million remand centre is underway at Risdon Prison.
Police Association of Tasmania president Col Riley said it would cost about $600,000 per year to employ correctional officers to replace police during the day as security and to transport prisoners out-of-hours.
That figure would include employing two correctional officers for day duties, and four correctional officers for the after hours transport, as well as ongoing administrative costs.
It would also be $189,000 less than the cost that was allocated to removing police from the Launceston Supreme Court - which was estimated at $789,00 annually.
Mr Riley said this was "far less" than the cost of having police officers in court.
"It is not just a financial cost either, it is taking staff away from the front end," he said.
"Police resources are already stretched, particularly with the COVID-19 situation, so for our members to be doing court security it is a poor use of those resources.
"Why are we using highly-trained police officers to sit in a chair in court looking after someone? It is just ridiculous."
A project manager was appointed by the government in November 2017 to "investigate options" on the North-West.
But nearly three years later, there has been no change.
A Justice Department spokesman said the project manager had been on a fixed-term contract "to assist in analysing the options for progressing the transition of police out of Burnie courts".
"That project manager, having completed valuable work for this project, has recently moved to a separate agency to take up a new permanent role in government," they said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
The Justice Department spokesman also said the planned Northern Regional Prison was expected to accommodate remandees from both the North and North-West.
It is understood the state government will make an announcement about the prison's construction "soon", after it received a Social Economic Impact Study at the beginning of the month.
But the process of removing police from the Burnie Supreme Court was "not reliant" on the completion of the prison, the Justice Department spokesman said.
"The Department of Justice and the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management are continuing to have productive discussions about transitioning police out of the Burnie court," the spokesman said.
"A number of options for the government to consider are close to being finalised."
