‘We certainly have a problem’: Melburnians left waiting hours for police

The boss of the Victorian police union says we “certainly have a problem” with long police call-out times.

Malvern woman Amelia was one of those “terrified” and left waiting hours for police.

On Thursday night, she was home with her two kids when she woke to the dog barking at 2am.

“There’s a glass door to the front of the property that we’re in and I could see a silhouette of a human form kind of shining on the wall next door,” she told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“I call triple zero and I wait, and no one came. Fifteen minutes later I was thinking ‘Well I should call again’ – so I called again and no one came.

“An hour later I called again and no one came.

“I rang the Malvern Police Station and a lovely policeman said ‘Look, I really feel for you. I’ve got young children of my own but we just don’t have the resources to get to you’.”

Police eventually attended her property at 5am.

Tony Jones has also been told about another similar incident in Hoppers Crossing on Saturday night.

Press PLAY below to hear Amelia’s account of the “terrifying” ordeal

Police Association Victoria secretary, Wayne Gatt, says “we certainly have a problem” with lengthy police call-out times.

“Our members are stretched at the frontline, particularly in police stations, and that’s largely the place that we dispatch those responses from,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

Victoria is the only mainland state where police response times aren’t measured.

Mr Gatt says that is causing a lot of the problems.

“We think it impedes service quality,” he said.

“We think what it fails to do is it fails to provide an essential piece of data that really is essential in allocating resources properly.”

Press PLAY below to hear what Mr Gatt thinks is to blame for long wait times