Love it or hate it, the annual schoolies celebrations in Surfers Paradise has become a fixture on the Gold Coast’s annual calendar. Each year, school leavers throughout Australia come to the Glitter Strip to let their hair down and celebrate their achievement of completing their secondary schooling. With such numbers of inexperienced party goes, obviously the security challenges are heightened and quite unique for all involved.

At Rent-a-Cop, we actively promote the highest standards of professionalism in Security. We believe industry and training standards are too low and also recognise many organisations do not meet the minimum statutory standard required to run a security business. We do what we can to lift industry standards through re-education of businesses and also by practising what we preach, demanding a higher level of training and professionalism from our staff.

Being new to the Gold Coast, we have been very active in our communication with businesses, better understanding business needs and expectations when it comes to security. Obviously, the need for security is heightened when events like Schoolies occur, due primarily to the significant numbers of people who attend the event, not to mention the inexperienced use and exposure to alcohol.

Now, in our interaction with businesses, both generally and specifically in regard to Schoolies security, we have become very concerned about the state of the Security Industry on the Gold Coast. What we do not understand though, is where this low expectation of a security officer comes from. Is it just reflective of poor practise over many years – and its what you have come to expect? Or is it what you have received, due to unrealistic cost expectations forcing security businesses to provide services at unsustainable prices, given industry costs?

Regardless, of the cause of this situation, the concern to us is that the current situation puts everyone at risk. It puts you, your staff, family and assets at risk, and it also puts our security officers at risk. This is the exact opposite of what security is about.

If you would like more information on this, and our findings from our interaction with Gold Coast businesses, we wrote more about it on our Facebook page – click through here for the whole story here. Gold Coast Security Standards and Schoolies