Adelaide City Council voted this week to continue running its bilingual (Chinese-Mandarin) community liaison officer service until June 2025.

Between July 2023 and March 2024, 200 initial enquiries were received by residents wanting to use the service, many of which had ongoing contact and follow-ups.

Of the 200 enquiries, 175 related to council services, specifically community safety, permits and approvals, marketing and media enquiries, environmental health, and project consultations such as the Gouger Street upgrade.

Most other enquiries related to police matters including security and reporting of theft, damage and anti-social behaviour.

Councillor Simon Hou said the liaison service had done “great things for our community” but he would still like to see an additional role for a community safety officer filled by the end of this council term.

“The reality is on the one hand SAPOL found it very difficult to recruit a front-line police officer that speaks Mandarin and it’s even harder to encourage them to be stationed in the CBD,” Hou said.

“At the same time we found that from our side it’s almost impossible to recruit anyone to fit a community safety officer position because not many Chinese people locally have policing experience, we had to downgrade the position to a liaison officer.

“We need to work with SAPOL to make this work and now in early 2024 finally SAPOL have recruited three front-line police officers that speak Mandarin, even though none of them is now stationed in the City of Adelaide – hopefully in the future we will have someone stationed in Adelaide.”

When asked by InDaily if it was correct that no Mandarin-speaking police officers were stationed in the CBD, SA Police said there were Mandarin or Cantonese-speaking staff in metro and country regions.

“South Australia Police have a number of staff (sworn and unsworn) who work in the metropolitan area including the CBD who speak Mandarin or Cantonese,” a spokesperson said.

“Any of these staff can be sought to assist as needed in situations where a person who speaks Mandarin or Cantonese has a police-related enquiry and the assistance of these people can speed up the efficiency of the service to that member of the public.”

The current form of the Adelaide City Council’s bilingual liaison service was originally trialled in 2022. Safety-related enquiries have lessened since then as the service has evolved over time, according to a council report.

“It didn’t happen in one day, it took about three years for us to come to this point of time,” Hou said.

The bilingual community liaison role includes assisting business owners with safety concerns, educating them on the different responsibilities of SAPOL and council and explaining how to contact the appropriate services for their enquiries.

Approximately 20 per cent of the City of Adelaide’s population is of Chinese heritage, with nearly 14 per cent speaking Mandarin at home, making it the most commonly spoken language other than English by city residents.

In February, the council hosted a function recognising SAPOL’s newly recruited bilingual police officers, probationary constables Kim Neo and Xiaoxuan Yuan and Sergeant Sacha Yan.

At the function, SAPOL said it intended to recruit a dedicated bilingual community liaison officer of its own.

SAPOL and the council intend to collaborate to maximise the community value of their services once SAPOL has appointed a bilingual community liaison officer.

Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith shared the council’s support for SAPOL’s bilingual officers on her social media.