The call came among the protests and riots which broke out across the United States and the rest of the world, including Australia, following the death of of black American man George Floyd at the hands of police.

"Defund the police" has become a common chant at protests around the world against police brutality and systemic racism.

In Minneapolis, ground zero for the global unrest, the city council said it would disband the city's police department and replace it with "a holistic model of public safety."

Mr Tilyard said it was important to fully understand what the call meant.

"My understanding is when people say 'defund the police', what they're talking about - well, most of them at least - is that there are underlying issues that explain why black people are overrepresented and have more contact with police," he said.

"These are around housing, education, mental health, and other social services.

"So, people are saying, those areas need more funding from government so we can address those issues, and some of that money could come from police budgets.

"The thinking being, if you improve in those areas then the offending reduces anyway so you don't need to spend as much on police. That's the thinking, and it's a reasonable approach if you can get it to work."

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He said Tasmania had long had a collaborative approach between police and other areas of government, such as education, housing, and mental health, as well as with the Aboriginal community.

But he also noted he was not personally responsible for allocating taxpayer money into specific services.

"If you can get to the point where less funding for police might be reasonable, because you've chanelled additional funding into these other areas and therefore there is less violence, there is less social disorder, there is less crime - if you get to that point then, fine," he said.

"I think the concept, in principle, is certainly worth considering.

"Whether - in terms of providing the funding that's needed in those areas - whether that should come from the police budget or from other areas is a matter for government."

Black Lives Matter protests in Tasmania and wider Australia have focused on Indigenous deaths in custody - with at least 434 Aboriginal people losing their lives in police custody or prisons since 1991 - and perceived targeting of Aboriginal people by Australian police forces.

Mr Tilyard said there was no evidence of systemic racism within Tasmania Police.

"Aboriginal people are overrepresented in terms of police charges, compared to the broader population, and also in terms of the prison population," he said.

He said in 2016, Aboriginal people were about five per cent of the Tasmanian population but about 16 per cent of people arrested.

"That doesn't mean that they've been targeted by police," he said.

"There are other, underlying factors that explain that overrepresentation, in terms of disadvantage."

He said this financial year, only nine complaints of 191 made against police were by people who identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and that those complaints were not necessarily about racism.

"The complaints that we do receive - there's an audit process through the Tasmanian Integrity Commission, they come in and audit complaints to make sure that we've investigated them appropriately, so there is that independent oversight," he said.

"The other main source of reporting potential racism or targeting is to Equal Opportunity Tasmania and the Discrimination Commissioner. She hasn't been talking to us about significant complaints being made about Tasmania Police.

"I'm confident there's no systemic targeting of Aboriginal people or Aboriginal communities by police in Tasmania, by any means."

He said a focus of Tasmania Police was to improve collaborations with the Aboriginal community to reduce offending.