Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison and Shadow Minister for Justice and Police Guy Zangari push NSW Government for more police in Maitland

She said high domestic violence rates combined with a lack of officers meant police had to put tackling other incidents on the back burner.

“That’s a terrible situation for our police to be in because a lack of resourcing,” she said.

“Police in Maitland do an amazing job. But we are the highest for domestic violence in the state, that takes up an inordinate amount of their resources.

“There’s just not a lot left for these kinds of crimes that are happening in the community.”

One community member that has felt the pinch from a lack of police is Thornton Church of Christ pastor Damien Parks.

He said the church had suffered a myriad of crimes, from vandalism to drug deals and even a church volunteer being assaulted and put in hospital.

Mr Parks said he called the police after that incident, but it took four hours for officers to arrive.

“They were very good, it just took a long time for them to get here,” he said.

Jenny Aitchison said it was just one of a number of reports her office had received that pointed towards a necessity for more police.

“Our first advice is to report to police, but because of that lack of resourcing often there’s a very long delay between when someone reports and when the police are able to get there,” she said.

“Since the beginning of the year we’ve had seven incidents of bikie related crime – that puts big pressure on police.

“People coming into my office everyday telling me they’re scared to be in their own homes because of antisocial behaviour.”

Ms Aitchison and the local police union made a push last year for 20 extra police for Maitland. Ten positions were allocated in December, who will arrive in the district in June.

But Ms Aitchison said 10 was not enough, and the fact Maitland’s police headquarters had been shifted over to Raymond Terrace did not help.

“We don’t have that headquarters here it’s over at Port Stephens, we’re 10 police short, we haven’t got the full allocation from the other 10,” she said.

Shadow Minister for Justice and Police Guy Zangari visited Maitland on Wednesday to call on the government to allocate more police to Maitland.

When asked if a Labor government would commit to greater police numbers, he said: “we are looking at that as we speak.”

“We will be putting forward a comprehensive package,” he said. “We will be going through and looking at the budget with what’s available in order to make sure that we get those frontline police officers we need.

He said Labor was looking at “strategies” that would be announced in coming months.

“We will continue to talk to people to ensure we get the right information possible to give the Police Commissioner the funding and the resources he needs in order to fill the gaps in policing.”