The Police Commissioner says demand for police to respond to social harm is displacing their ability to attend other jobs.

The briefing to the new minister included proposing going less to family harm callouts, which have risen 80 percent in the past 10 years.

Commissioner Andrew Coster says officers would like to be doing more work only police can do.

He says a managed withdrawal from harm callouts is the only way to free them up.

"The ideal situation here would be that others step up to deal with this demand, because arguably- help should be available in some of these situations."

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