Australian Federal Police Officers Threaten To Abandon Parliament As Pay Dispute Escalates

An Australian Federal Police (AFP) spokesperson has said the officers' plan to abandon their posts at Parliament this week if their demand for a 20% hike is not met would be "unlawful."

The AFP had proposed an 11.2% pay rise against the 20% demand by the Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA), the union that represents the officers, leading to a long-running dispute, ABC News reported.

The call for industrial action is made to coincide with the two sitting weeks of the Parliament. However, a spokesperson for AFP called the union's action illegal since withdrawing protection from parliamentarians, Parliament House or Canberra Airport during the first week of a sitting period required a notice of five business days.

"If the AFP is notified of protected industrial action that could impact on next week's sitting, the AFP would strenuously oppose this application in the Fair Work Commission," the AFP spokesperson said.

The AFPA rejected the proposal for an 11.2% pay hike for a period of three years for federal public servants, and claimed a 20% rise for the same period.

"We're not regular public servants. We do more than a regular police officer in the states," AFPA president Alex Caruana said. "We stop terrorists. We stop people from getting their heads chopped off. We stop kids from getting fiddled."

There were several instances of security breaches recently. Six weeks ago, pro-Palestine protesterrs climbed the Parliament House to protest the federal government's stand on the Gaza war.

After the incident, security at the Parliament House was increased to prevent such breach in future, Senate President Sue Lines said.

In the last financial year, parliamentarians have faced a record number of security threats.

Last week, Australia had raised the National Terror Threat Level to "probable" and AFP has been responding to threats against MPs, Sky News reported.

As the threats against MPs increased, the police officers were reassigned from frontline duties, which was stretching the force thin.

"It's a bit of a fallacy that this government is ... continually asking the AFP to continue to do more," Caruana said. "We can't continue to be so stretched. There's only so far the vegemite will spread on the toast before eventually there's part of the toast that's not going to be covered."

The AFP officers claimed they were paid less than the force in other states.