One mayor says a plan to have a fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) police force is a “kick in the guts” to rural employment.

The Queensland Police Service has indicated it may take to FIFO policing to fill vacancies in regional and remote areas. The proposal has the support of the state’s police union, but has been decried by several local mayors.

A similar rural rotation scheme has reportedly been successful for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with Police Minister Jack Dempsey saying something must be done to bring law and order to the bush.

“We need to look at all options for the future so we can get police out to police these communities and other areas such as mining centres,” Queensland Police Union (QPU) president Ian Leavers said.

“It seems to be that rural and remote areas are not good enough for people anymore,” says Bulloo Mayor John Ferguson

“They all want to live on the coast.”

“We have got two married policemen in Thargomindah - between those two families there are seven children and I think they all go the school... if they start this fly-in, fly-out caper, that will be seven kids out of our school, two families out of our town,” Councillor Ferguson said.

“This is another kick in the guts for the bush for some reason.”

The standard of housing for rural police has been a major factor in the push for FIFO officers. The Queensland Department of Housing says some properties were built for police decades ago, and may not have been adequately maintained.

Councillor Ferguson said that problem can be surmounted.

“There are solutions to this - we've done it here at the hospital,” he said.

“Council has built a house, for the matron at the hospital, and they then give us a 20-year lease on that.

“Now if Queensland police don't want to build houses, then maybe they need to start talking to the councils and say; ‘look, you build the house’.”

Former police officer and now Etheridge Mayor Will Attwood says local knowledge is fundamental to policing rural areas, and can only be learned through ongoing experience.

“When our rodeo was on last year, when all the families get together they bring their kids and when it gets later in the night we just put the kids in swags and put them underneath the grandstand so they can go to sleep,” he told the ABC.

“We had a police officer who was threatening to charge people with child neglect offences because their kids were asleep underneath the grandstand wrapped up in swags - I mean that's just sort of silly stuff.”