Victoria Police has been working through the most significant structural and leadership refresh it has had in years. Mike Bush CNZM commenced as the 24th Chief Commissioner on 27 June 2025, and the agenda he has set out — recruitment, technology, bureaucracy and leadership — has shaped the priorities running through 2026. Our newsroom has been mapping the senior leadership group, the four deputy commissioner portfolios and the published Corporate Plan to give readers a plain-English picture of how the organisation is structured and where the new leadership wants to take it.
The Chief Commissioner
Mike Bush is a New Zealander with more than four decades of policing and corporate experience. He served as Commissioner of New Zealand Police from 2014 to 2020 and is widely associated with the “prevention-first” reform program that produced measurable reductions in offending in that jurisdiction. His appointment in Victoria followed a no-confidence vote in the previous chief commissioner and a transitional period under acting chief commissioner Rick Nugent APM.
Bush’s stated priorities, as he laid them out publicly in his early months, are:
- Technology. Modernising the IT environment, including investigative case management, body-worn camera and digital evidence handling, and frontline mobility tools.
- Recruitment and retention. Closing what he has described as a roughly 1,400-officer shortfall against the establishment, and stabilising attrition in the early-career cohorts.
- Bureaucracy. Removing process and paperwork that does not contribute to public safety outcomes, redirecting officer time toward frontline work.
- Leadership at every level. A multi-stream uplift program targeting sergeants, senior sergeants and inspectors as the operational backbone of the organisation.
The publicly-stated outcome of the bureaucracy work to date is the redirection of more than a million hours of officer time back to frontline duties — a figure that has been quoted in Victoria Police communications and in public statements through late 2025 and early 2026.
The four deputy commissioner portfolios
Victoria Police is structured under four deputy commissioner portfolios, plus two deputy secretaries who lead corporate functions. The portfolios as currently published are:
- Regional Operations. Oversight of the four police regions — North-West Metro, Southern Metro, Eastern and Western — and the State Emergencies and Support Command. Deputy Commissioner Robert (Bob) Hill APM holds this portfolio. Regional Operations is the largest of the four portfolios by headcount and accounts for the bulk of frontline policing.
- Specialist Operations. Oversight of the Family Violence Command, the Forensic Services Department, the Legal Services Department and the Road Policing Command. This is the portfolio that runs the specialist functions that operate alongside the regional structure.
- Public Safety and Security. Oversight of the Counter Terrorism Command, the Crime Command (which houses the major-case and serious-crime investigative squads), the Intelligence and Covert Support Command and the Transit and Public Safety Command.
- Capability. Oversight of the Capability Department, the Media Communications and Engagement Department, the People Development Command, Professional Standards Command and the Service Delivery Transformation Command. This is the portfolio that carries the workforce, integrity and reform-program functions.
The structure is not novel — versions of it have been in place for several command cycles — but the portfolios have been periodically rebalanced. The current configuration places the specialist investigative work in Public Safety and Security, while Specialist Operations holds the response functions that interface most heavily with victim-survivors.
The State Crime Co-ordination Centre
One of the more substantive operational changes Bush has signalled is the establishment of a State Crime Co-ordination Centre, intended to come fully online through early 2026. The centre’s job is to centralise intelligence, data analytics and deployment decisions for state-level crime priorities — organised crime, illicit firearms, major drug operations, the tobacco-trade taskforce work and the cross-region investigations that have historically required ad hoc coordination.
The model takes its inspiration partly from the New Zealand National Investigations Coordination Centre that operated under Bush during his time there, and partly from the State Control Centre model that has matured in Victoria’s emergency-management space.
The corporate plan
The Victoria Police Corporate Plan 2025–2026 is the formal document setting out the organisation’s strategic direction. It anchors the priorities listed above to specific deliverables across the year. The Annual Report 2024–25 is the latest performance ledger against the previous plan, with sections covering offending data, workforce numbers, integrity matters and capability investments.
Our team’s read of the published Corporate Plan is that it is more directional than prescriptive. The document sets out the strategic posture but leaves the operational shape of how the priorities are pursued to be filled in through the year. That is consistent with Bush’s stated approach, which is to lead through priorities and trust commanders to deliver against them rather than to dictate detailed playbooks from the centre.
Recruitment and the workforce question
The 1,400-officer shortfall figure has been central to the political conversation through 2026. The Police Association of Victoria has been raising the workload pressure on remaining officers as a workplace-safety issue, and the recruitment campaigns running through the year have been the most visible-to-the-public-eye of any in years.
The Academy intake numbers have lifted from the post-pandemic low. Attrition in the first three years of service — historically the highest-risk window — is the metric the new leadership is watching most closely. The retention initiatives, including pay structure changes negotiated through the Enterprise Agreement, the rural and regional incentive arrangements and the family-friendly rostering pilots, are all designed to bend that curve.
Professional Standards and integrity
Professional Standards Command sits inside the Capability portfolio and carries the integrity function — internal investigations, complaints handling and the interface with the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC). IBAC remains the external oversight body, with its own statutory functions and its own published reports.
The integrity conversation through 2026 has continued to focus on the post-Operation Lawyer X reforms, the use-of-force review work and the professional-conduct training threaded through the workforce uplift program. Our newsroom treats IBAC’s published reports as the primary public record of how that work is progressing.
The regional structure
The four police regions cover the state geographically:
- North-West Metropolitan Region (the inner-northern and outer-western suburbs of Melbourne).
- Southern Metropolitan Region (the bayside and south-eastern suburbs).
- Eastern Region (the outer east, the Yarra Ranges and the Gippsland corridor).
- Western Region (Geelong, Ballarat and the western and northern country districts).
Each region is led by an Assistant Commissioner. The Assistant Commissioners are the operational point at which strategic priorities meet front-line delivery, and the Bush leadership program has placed significant emphasis on that role as the lever for cultural and operational change.
What our team is watching for through 2026
Three things on our calendar:
- The next iteration of the Corporate Plan, due to be published mid-year for 2026–2027.
- The Annual Report 2025–26, which will be the first full performance ledger against the Bush priorities.
- The continuing public commentary from the Chief Commissioner on the State Crime Co-ordination Centre, the technology uplift and the recruitment numbers.
Where to find the official material
Victoria Police publishes its Corporate Plan, Annual Report and organisational structure on its public website at police.vic.gov.au. IBAC’s published reports are at ibac.vic.gov.au. The Police Association of Victoria publishes its own commentary on workforce and operational matters at tpav.org.au.
If you have information for police, the Police Assistance Line is on 131 444 for non-urgent matters. Crime Stoppers is on 1800 333 000 for anonymous reporting. For immediate emergencies, dial 000.
Jack Renton covers police rounds and major incidents for Victoria Crime News.
