General News
12 May, 2026
Crime Stoppers volunteers axed
VOLUNTEERS of FNQ Crime Stoppers say they are “absolutely gutted” after major changes were announced affecting how the organisation operates.
For more than 30 years, Crime Stoppers has operated state-wide through a volunteer-led, locally based committee model, but all that will now change, with volunteers no longer to be used in spreading the anti-crime message.
Crime Stoppers Queensland chief executive officer David Hansen said the new model was needed because the way people engaged with organisations had changed significantly, as had the regulatory and technology environments.
“Today, more awareness and reporting is driven through digital and media channels, while governance, safety and compliance requirements have also increased,” he said.
“Crime Stoppers Queensland is transitioning to a sustainable model that better balances statewide campaigns, partnership growth and support, and digital engagement, with a smaller number of local community-based volunteer roles.”
But FNQ Volunteer Area Committee chairman and Mareeba Shire Councillor Mladen Bosnic said his 45 active volunteers were “absolutely gutted” at the heavy-handed changes.
“As a highly active local group, we have raised over $134,000 in order to procure a four-wheel-drive vehicle that would enable our group to spread the Crime Stoppers Queensland word, activities and services to otherwise isolated towns and areas in the region,” he said.
“As we had done previously, we planned to raise our activities and services to include indigenous communities and small towns on the Peninsula.
“Accordingly, we sent a submission and business plan for that to happen to the Crime Stoppers board, but given the most recent configuration regarding dispensing with volunteers, that all has fallen on deaf ears because now we are denied operating with our keen, committed and effective volunteer base,” Mr Bosnic said.
He said years of building rapport with the local community had proved to be successful but those efforts had now been made defunct.
“We are now informed that instead of the close contact we have worked so hard to develop and improve as a volunteer group, there will now be 15 Crime Stoppers ‘Ambassadors’ appointed across the state as part of the new strategy,” Mr Bosnic said.
A media statement from Crime Stoppers claimed this would ensure the organisation could serve “the increasingly diverse Queensland communities more consistently, using a mix of modern communication channels, partnership amplification, and targeted local engagement”.
But Mr Bosnic said how that would best serve the community was questionable when “modern communication channels” still had black spots and outages between Mareeba and Cairns where mobile phones simply do not work and reception or lack thereof gets worse, especially in rural and remote areas.”
It is envisaged that new volunteer ambassador roles “will focus on maintaining strong local connections by working with community leaders, organisations and personal networks, helping to facilitate partnerships and support targeted engagement where it is most effective”.
“How one person can spread the word and awareness of Crime Stoppers Queensland across our extensive rural region better than 45 highly active volunteers remains to be seen,” Mr Bosnic said.
“There is certainly not a ‘one size fits all’ reality in policing nor the delivery methods affecting public safety.”
Under the new model, there will be no changes to how the public can anonymously report information. The Crime Stoppers phone number, online reporting channels and anonymity protections remain the same.
