PAY RISE FOR POLICE AFTER ENTERPRISE GOALS ATTAINED

Police and civilian employees of the Queensland Police Service will receive a 4 per cent pay rise from July 1 after achieving enterprise bargaining agreement productivity targets, Police Minister Russell Cooper said today.

Mr Cooper said the pay rise lent a lie to outrageous claims by Opposition Leader Peter Beattie that the Coalition Government was denying pay hikes to police and other government employees.

"The pay rise, which was approved by Cabinet on May 18, proves that the QPS is more efficient with the support of the Coalition Government, with extra resources, more staff and vastly improved morale," Mr Cooper said.

"The cost of the wage increases for the QPS over three years is $62.5 million, with a $20.7 million component for the 1998-99 financial year.

"The EBA was negotiated between the Queensland Police Service and the three unions having coverage of employees - the Queensland Police Union of Employees, the Professional Officers Union and the State Public Sector Federation of Queensland."

Mr Cooper said 16 of the 33 initiatives negotiated as part of the EBA stage one were proposed by the unions.

The initiatives included issues such as officer training on the Polaris custody and arrest module and offender history computer models; computer-based training for the Phoenix bulletin board; and hands-on training for the Mobile Integrated Network Data Access (MINDA) system.

"All initiatives are either in the policy development phase, implementation phase or have been implemented," Mr Cooper said.

"They will make the QPS more efficient and will undoubtedly improve service delivery to the people. The QPS is satisfied that implementation has been successfully undertaken and all targets set for stage one of the agreement met."

Mr Cooper said the Opposition yesterday continued its election campaign of half-truths, untruths and downright Labor lies'.

"They have been deliberately distorting crime statistics and police numbers right across the State in a disgusting attempt to scare the people and now they make the outrageous claim that the Government deliberately intended withholding deserved pay rises for our hard-working police and QPS civilians," Mr Cooper said.

"It shows yet again that Labor can't tell the truth and can't be trusted!"