The Police Association is questioning why regular officers are in the "last tranche" to be vaccinated against Covid-19 along with the general public.
President Chris Cahill told Q+A's Jack Tame vaccinations are underway for about 1800 officers on the frontline who could be deployed to MIQ facilities, but not the rest of the force.
This was in contrast to fellow emergency workers at Fire and Emergency NZ and St John Ambulance who were already being vaccinated as part of Group 2 .
"The idea that police aren't emergency services has left everyone scratching their heads."
He said "regular officers" needed to be vaccinated now because they would be on the frontlines if there was another coronavirus outbreak.
"We’ve looked at this the wrong way. We’ve looked at this that New Zealand’s safe and police don’t need to be vaccinated until the general population," Cahill said.
"But the whole point of vaccinating is if there is an outbreak and that’s when the police will be at the frontline dealing with the people that are carrying Covid and that is why they need to be vaccinated."
Cahill said he had had spoken with Police Minister Poto Williams two weeks ago and she could see where the association is coming from.
"We haven't heard back to know where there's going to be a change when there needs to be."
The Police Association wanted assurance police officers would not have to wait until the "fourth tranche" to be vaccinated, Cahill said.
The police association says if there's an outbreak, it's their officers who are on the frontline unprotected.
"I know people that work in IT departments for Oranga Tamariki who have been vaccinated," he said.
"I have one officer whose 17-year-old son works two days a week as a shelf stacker at Chemist Warehouse who has been vaccinated."
He pointed out how every police officer in Australia was at the "front end" of their vaccination roll-out.
"We say roll it out now, keep it going while we've got the ability to do it."
All of this came at the "toughest time" to be a police officer, Cahill felt.
This was driven by officers' "horrendous" workload, the risks they faced and the public scrutiny they were subject to.
There had been a 44 per cent increase in family harm incidents in the last four years and officers had attended 68,000 mental health callouts last year, Cahill said.
An officer was also injured everyday while on the job.
"That all adds up, those three things, to make it a pretty tough time."
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