Cabinet has approved funding to buy almost 500 new police cars which will replace older vehicles and those with more than 100,000km on the clock.
Police Minister George Hawkins said today that the Government was spending $16.8 million in 2002/03 on replacement police vehicles.
This was $230,000 more than the previous year'spolice car budget.
Mr Hawkins said in a statement the money would be used to buy around 484 new vehicles.
Rather than expand the fleet, the new cars would replace existing ones meaning the average age and distance cars had travelled would reduce, thus modernising the fleet.
Police had 2773 vehicles, including marked and unmarked patrol vehicles, dog unit transport, prison vans and motorcycles.
Once the new cars were purchased, vehicles with more than 100,000km on the clock would fall from around 55 per cent to 37 per cent of the fleet.
