Five New Constables Join ‘The Big Blue Family’

Five new first-year constables have joined police stations across Mackay, Bowen, Sarina and Proserpine, bringing fresh experience and a strong focus on community policing. Photo credit: Hannah McNamara  

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Mackay and surrounding regions have just received another five first year constables, bringing fresh faces, new experiences and a range of backgrounds to local police stations.

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The new recruits met with Mackay and Whitsunday District commissioned officers, along with Member for Mackay Nigel Dalton, last Thursday as they settle into their new stations across the region.

Mackay Whitsunday District Officer Superintendent Dean Cavanagh said it was an exciting opportunity to welcome the new officers into the district and introduce them to the local community.

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“It’s a really exciting opportunity to bring in the new staff, the new skills, new experiences, and invite them into the Mackay Whitsunday District, but also into the big blue family,” he said.

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The five constables will be stationed across Bowen, Sarina, Proserpine and Mackay, bringing a broad range of experiences with them.

Among the new recruits is Sarina-based First Year Constable Kai Chin, who moved to Queensland after spending seven years working as a police officer in Taiwan.

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While the move has brought a change of scenery, Constable Chin said the work itself felt surprisingly familiar to back home.

“It’s actually surprising for me how similar it is to be a police officer here, as it is in Taiwan,” he said.

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“The legislation is different, and the country is a little different, but I think what we do and who we are is basically exactly the same.”

Proserpine First Year Constable Xenia Marianna Vansche is also bringing a different perspective to the region, having moved from Brisbane to begin her policing career in North Queensland.

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After completing a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Constable Vansche said her university studies helped cement her decision to join the police force.

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“Going through the three years in uni, I did some electives in policing topics, so evidence-based policing, and that kind of cemented my career progression into the police force,” she said.

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Her interest in policing also began much earlier, after participating in karate and seeing female police officers involved in demonstrations at school fetes.

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“Seeing women’s presence in policing really helped kind of cement it, and then I kind of went through uni and I was like, yeah, this is something I really want to do,” she said.

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Superintendent Cavanagh said the new recruits had arrived with the right attitude towards community policing and would spend their first year gaining operational experience alongside training officers.

“They’ve got that great platform now from their learning at the Academy,” he said.

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“They join the district now to get that operational experience and make sure that they’re teamed up with training officers to really make sure over this next year they get all the skills they need so they can help our communities.”

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Superintendent Cavanagh said the welcome would give senior officers an opportunity to get to know the first-year constables, share and reminisce on stories from their own early days in the force, and offer encouragement as the new recruits began their careers.

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