FAQs

Application to join Tasmania Police is open to anyone over the age of 17.5 years

To apply for a police officer position, you must have a current Australian provisional drivers licence or greater. This licence can be for either manual or automatic vehicles.

If you hold a licence granted interstate or overseas, it will need to be transferred to a Tasmanian licence prior to commencing a trainee course.

Once employed as a police officer, you may be required to drive automatic and manual transmission vehicles.

To meet minimum driving offence history standards, applicants must have no driving offences recorded against their license/s for a period of twelve (12) months prior to lodging an on-line application and continue to remain offence free throughout the recruitment process . All other traffic offences and driving behaviour issues outside the twelve month period will be taken into account and may result in an application being rejected. Serious driving offences will generally result in an application being rejected.

You must be an Australian citizen or hold Australian permanent residency to join Tasmania Police.

You are required to provide proof of citizenship or permanent residency status in your application.  If this criteria is not met, your application will not be accepted.

Tasmania’s Police Service Act 2003 stipulates a mandatory retirement age of 65.

Be prepared for the application process to take up to 6 months.

This can change, depending upon when the next recruit course is commencing and how many other people are also going through the application process.

This varies depending upon the number of applications being processed but you should be ready to undertake the assessment from the moment you submit the application as you could be invited to attend within 2-3 weeks of submitting, or it may be 2-3 months.

If for reasons outside of your control, you are unable to attend the assessment date allocated to you, at the discretion of recruiting services you may be given the opportunity to attend on an alternate day. Only one deferral is permitted.

Tasmania Police does not charge any fees during the application process.  But, you will be required to meet the costs for your bronze medallion, first aid certificate and medical testing.

If you have specific questions that you would like to speak to our recruiting services staff about, the best starting point is an email: recruiting@police.tas.gov.au or by phone – 1800 628 680.  If during that discussion, it is agreed that it would be beneficial to meet in person, we will arrange this with you.

As a recruit at the Academy you will be paid $48,858 per annum.  Correct as at 1 July 2017.

The fitness test will require preparation and training.  If you are not sure how to train to pass a fitness test, you may need to go to your local gym and ask a personal trainer to set you a program.  The fitness test is here.

Having a tattoo may affect your application.

Any tattoo, body art or modification that is located on any of the following areas of the body is prohibited:

• visible part of the neck;
• face;
• scalp;
• ears; or
• hands (including the palm, fingers, and thumb).

Applicants are also not to have tattoos that are culturally insensitive, rude or offensive, and must be considered within community expectations (e.g. no offensive sayings or words in English or other languages, no offensive pictures, no facial tattoos, or similar depictions).

The Tasmania Police Dress and Appearance guidelines stipulate that a uniformed officer with visible tattoos is to ensure uniform garments are worn that minimise the visibility of tattoos (e.g. wearing long sleeve shirts where arm tattoos exist).

Body Piercing is allowed, however, is not to be worn during work hours as it may pose a Health and Safety risk. Obvious ear spacers are not allowed as the holes left could pose a Health and Safety risk to the officer.

If you are an undischarged bankrupt then you are not eligible to apply to join Tasmania Police.  If you have been discharged from your bankruptcy, more than three years must have passed before you will become eligible to apply.

You do not have to have a First Aid Certificate or swimming certification when submitting your expression of interest. You will be advised by our recruiting staff when you are required to complete these.  Given they are expensive to complete, we do not recommend that you undertake these prior to submitting your application (unless you are doing so for other purposes as well).

The National Health and Medical Research Council has endorsed the Body Mass Index (BMI) approach to determining an acceptable weight to height ratio for the population. In determining the healthy weight range for applicants, Tasmania Police has also adopted this approach.

If you have a BMI of less than 18.5 your application will be assessed by our fitness consultants and possibly your general practitioner, to determine whether you are suitable for the demands of the training.

If you have a BMI of 18.5 – 29.9 you fall within the acceptable range for entry.

If you have a BMI above 29.9 you will not be acceptable for entry into Tasmania Police and you will be classified as medically unfit.  Should you lose weight and meet the BMI standards, you will be required to maintain this at all times throughout the recruitment process (as with all our compulsory elements).

Should you have an elevated BMI due to higher levels of muscle mass, your application will be assessed by our fitness consultants and possibly your general practitioner, to determine whether you present an unacceptable level of risk to participate in the recruitment process.

As a part of the recruitment process, you will be required to undertake a hearing test.  If you wear hearing aids to pass this test, you will be required to wear these whilst undertaking duties as a police officer.

The psychological demands of policing can be very intense and policing requires members to perform a broad range of law enforcement duties that will sometimes involve highly stressful and dangerous situations. As this is the case, it is essential that you are free of any mental illness or psychological symptoms that would prevent you from being able to perform the duties of an operational police officer.

As a starting point for you to consider for yourself, you may want to reflect on the factors or triggers that led to your psychological disorder and then consider your potential exposure to similar triggers whilst undertaking police duties.

As a general guide, you must have been asymptomatic for at least two years prior to applying to join Tasmania Police and if we believe it is necessary, we may request a report from an independent psychiatrist.

Yes. However, many police functions relate to naming and identifying the colours of vehicles and clothing. There are different types of colour blindness. Depending on the nature of your colour blindness, your colour vision will be assessed, if you are unsure as to the severity of your colour-blindness contact recruiting services and they will send you out an eye test to take to you Optometrist.

The recruit training course at the Tasmania Police Academy is run for a period of 28 or 29 weeks (dependent upon the time of year you undertake the course in).

At the conclusion of your recruit training course, you will have completed two thirds of the Bachelor of Police Studies with the University of Tasmania. But don’t worry, we have onsite education advisors, who will assist you whenever you need.

You are not required to live-in whilst studying at the Police Academy. However, you will still be allocated a room and be required to pay the set ‘board’ fee which includes accommodation and all meals (as at June 2017 this fee is $176.00).

No, if you are accepted into the Academy, you uniform will be supplied to you by Tasmania Police.

It is unlikely that you will have time for secondary employment whilst undertaking your study due to the intensity of the study load. You may also, on short notice, be required to work a different shift or complete work outside of hours during your training.  If you wish to undertake secondary employment, this will need to be approved by the Inspector in charge of recruit training.

The training at the academy involves long hours of intense physical and academic study and is a full time commitment.  It is recommended that you defer any significant personal study until after your graduation from the academy.

As a general rule, no you will not be able to take annual leave whilst at the Academy.  Leave may be granted in exceptional circumstances (such as your wedding, as long as it was pre-planned prior to your acceptance).  You will however, have access to sick leave and carer’s leave whilst studying.

Your prior concurrent government service will be applied to your employment with Tasmania Police upon application.

Upon graduation from the Academy, the operational needs of the service will determine where you are posted to and you will be posted to one of four training stations, situated in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie or Devonport.  Tasmania Police will attempt to accommodate the family/living situations of the persons involved, but this is not always possible.

Upon graduation you will receive $58,122 plus a 21% shift allowance applicable to all members working 24 hour rotational shift work.  Overtime is also paid when operational exigencies require you to work for longer than your rostered shift.  Correct as at 1 July 2017.

Police officers in Tasmania are entitled to 6 weeks annual leave per year, flexible and part time working opportunities (upon completion of 1 year as a probationary constable), an accumulated leave scheme, long service leave and opportunities to cash out recreational leave.  Members of Tasmania Police are also able to access approximately 10 weeks of sick leave per year.

Tasmania Police general duties officers work 24 hour rotating shift schedules. Upon graduation you will work as a general duties officer for at least one year and an example of the 5 week rotational roster is below.  The shifts will vary in length between 8, 9 and 10 hours.  In the case of a major incident or natural disaster as a police officer, you may be required to perform additional duties and hours.

The role of a general duties police officer is so broad it is difficult to explain! But, research shows that approximately 80% of police work involves nonviolent, service-related activities and interaction with people in the community to solve problems.  Explore this site and we will show you as much as we can so that you can make an informed choice as to whether policing is the career for you.

It is a highly competitive process amongst members of Tasmania Police to obtain positions within specialist areas and it is generally desirous that you will spend 2-3 years undertaking general uniform duties upon graduation, before looking to specialise.

Yes.  Tasmania Police is actively seeking women to apply, and with equal pay and equal opportunity for promotion, there’s never been a better time for women to consider a career in policing.  For more inspiration, check out Women in Policing page.

It would be in your best interest to be proficient in English in order to be successful in the recruit testing processes.

Tasmania Police is an equal opportunity employer.  We recruit to reflect the cultural diversity of the Tasmanian community.  All applications to Tasmania Police are considered on merit.