The government has pledged $210 million to develop the 24-hour Police Assistance Line and online portal which will allow people across the state to contact Victoria Police for non-emergency matters. 

The positions will be filled by a mix of Victoria Police and private sector employees, with the bulk of the positions to be full time. 

Victoria Police will oversee the call centre. 

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Victoria Police has released its tender for an operator and the location of the call centre will be confirmed following the tender process.  

Wendouree MP Sharon Knight said the government made the commitment to set up a specialist hotline about a year ago based on advice received by the Police Association of Victoria as well as through observing a similar model which has been implemented in New South Wales. 

“It’s another example of support for regional Victoria,” Ms Knight said. 

“Not everything has to be in Melbourne and where there are opportunities for regional Victoria we will take them.”  

The new hotline will provide a separate avenue for people to contact police aside from CrimeStoppers and 000, freeing up those lines of communication for serious crime and emergencies. 

People looking to report non-emergency occurrences such as noise complaints and neighbourhood disputes will be encouraged to contact the new line. 

While the government did not say when it expected to confirm the successful tender application, the phone line and online portal will be fully operational by 2019. 

Ms Knight also confirmed the jobs were entirely separate to the 600 new public sector jobs which are due to be based in Ballarat as part of the GovHub development at the Civic Hall site.