Queensland will waive police recruit testing fees in a bid to attract more people to the force, with staffing levels under scrutiny.
The state government is making the $215 entry test and $20 physical fitness test free for six months as it tries to fulfil its 2020 election promise to add 2025 new police by 2025.
Police Minister Mark Ryan says targets were met in the first two years but a tight labour market has slowed recruitment in 2022/23.
He says slashing test fees will help attract more people to apply to join the Queensland Police Service.
"Certainly by removing barriers to entry and providing opportunities for people to be informed about the police service then that is part of being proactive," Mr Ryan told reporters on Monday.
"But you look around Australia, it isn't just policing agencies, it's all industries, all sectors which are struggling with recruitment at the moment, but we're certainly doing everything we can to have our front foot forward in respect to recruitment."
The minister said hitting the 2025 recruitment target would hinge on retaining staff.
Opposition police spokesman Dale Last, a former officer, welcomed fees being waived, but said more needs to the done to retain police who are "prohibitively expensive" to train and are "leaving the service in droves".
"There should be alarm bells going off, not only within the department, but within the minister's offices as well as to the reasons why so many officers are leaving the service, " he said.
"Certainly they need to put in place recruitment strategies to meet those targets that they have actually committed to."
The Queensland police workforce has been in focus amid an uptick in youth crime and after it was revealed earlier this month that a special domestic violence command was understaffed.
At an inquiry into police responses to domestic violence, counsel assisting Ruth O'Gorman questioned Commissioner Katarina Carroll about multiple police service members giving evidence that the command was understaffed.
Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd, who heads the command, also asked Ms Carroll for more staff to be allocated.
The commissioner said she didn't recall that Mr Codd asked for more staff, but if he had she would have made it happen.
"I would have said, like I did at the beginning, 'Anything you want you get. Anything', because that's always been my view on the DV command," she told the inquiry.
