The state government is making the $215 entry test and $20 physical fitness test free for six months as it tries to fulfil its 2020 election promise to add 2025 new police by 2025.

Police Minister Mark Ryan says targets were met in the first two years but a tight labour market has slowed recruitment in 2022/23.

He says slashing test fees will help attract more people to apply to join the Queensland Police Service.

“Certainly by removing barriers to entry and providing opportunities for people to be informed about the police service then that is part of being proactive,” Mr Ryan told reporters on Monday.

“But you look around Australia, it isn’t just policing agencies, it’s all industries, all sectors which are struggling with recruitment at the moment, but we’re certainly doing everything we can to have our front foot forward in respect to recruitment.”

The minister said hitting the 2025 recruitment target would hinge on retaining staff.

The Queensland police workforce has also been in focus after it was revealed earlier this month that a special domestic violence command was understaffed.

At an inquiry into police responses to domestic violence, counsel assisting Ruth O’Gorman questioned Commissioner Katarina Carroll about multiple police service members giving evidence that the command was understaffed.

Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd, who heads the command, also asked Carroll for more staff to be allocated.

The commissioner said she didn’t recall that Codd asked for more staff, but if he had she would have made it happen.

“I would have said, like I did at the beginning, ‘Anything you want you get. Anything’, because that’s always been my view on the DV command,” she told the inquiry.