 Queensland Police was established in 1864 and provides call policing services 24 hours a day to approximately 4 million Queensland residents and about 7 million interstate and overseas visitors each year. Some 9,652 sworn police officers serve across 1.7 million square kilometres. This equates to about one-quarter of the landmass of Australia. Police officers aren't simply recruited, they have to be trained. Each year, Queensland Police trains 700 recruits at our academies in Brisbane and Townsville at a cost of about $40,000 per recruit. With large population centres located significant distances from Brisbane, Queensland is arguably the most decentralised of all Australian states. Police stations in far northern Queensland are more than 2,000 kilometres from police headquarters in Brisbane, further away than Hobart. While the state average police population ratio is 1 to 429, this ratio is as high as 1 to 127 on Palm Island and 1 to 148 in Arakoon. Queensland's large rural sector means that considerable resources are devoted to the Stock and Rural Crime Investigation Squad. These officers investigate rural crime and ensure compliance with livestock requirements. Servicing the hundreds of tiny islands in the Torres Strait, some of which are hours away from the mainland by boat, as well as dealing with the monsoonal nature of the weather in the north of the state, means that Queensland Police must rely heavily on its air wing and water police. Last financial year, Queensland Police air wing flew more than 14,000 passengers, a total of 863,000 kilometres. As well as transporting prisoners, air wing provides an essential service of moving specialist services such as the Special Emergency Response Team and the Public Safety Response Team around the state to respond to crisis situations. Queensland Water Police patrol about 3,700 kilometres of coastline and about 250 inhabited or semi-inhabited islands. Queensland Water Police have about 70 vessels ranging from two 16-metre Class 1 vessels down to jet skis. In 2007 they were involved in 856 marine search and rescue missions and 151 land search and rescue missions involving nearly 1,600 people at a cost to the service of about $2.25 million. They are also involved in security and counter-terrorism activities up and down the coast. Queensland has a range of counter-terrorism targets including large infrastructure such as refineries, bridges and transport hubs. Queensland Police has more than 2,100 vehicles which last year drove about 72 million kilometres, the equivalent of travelling to the moon and back 186 times. By far the highest concentration of population and the highest population growth is located in the southeast corner of the state from the Sunshine Coast through Brisbane and Surround and the Gold Coast. Placing these areas is similar to policing in any large metropolitan area. Brisbane is the fastest growing capital city in Australia. Unfortunately transport infrastructure is struggling to cope with the increased population resulting in increasing traffic congestion. On several occasions each week Queensland Police have to deal with near gridlock conditions in the city centre as a result of traffic crashes on the overstretched road system. Each year Queensland hosts a significant number of major events which attract many thousands of people from around Australia and the world. These include Indy on the Gold Coast, Schoolies, The Gimpy Country Music Muster, National Fixtures in Three Codes of Football and many others. On average there is more than one major event being held in Queensland each week of the year. It is not unusual for Brisbane to be hosting an at-home game of Rugby League at Sun Corp Stadium at night as an at-home AFL game is underway at the Gabba. The combined crowds often exceed 80,000 people. To fully understand the logistics involved in ensuring the safety and good conduct of these crowds they need to be taken in context. Any Friday or Saturday night of the year sees up to 70,000 people converge on the 500 licensed premises within the 20 square kilometres of the nightclub area of Fortitude Valley. Queensland, with its vast geographical and societal spread, provides some unique policing challenges. In addition to dealing with metropolitan areas similar to any large city in Australia, Queensland Police have the added complexity and costs associated with policing a huge area incorporating remote and Indigenous communities.