At present, 20 of the 56 sworn officers in the resort are women, a rate of 36%.
Two more women will join the resort ranks in March, taking the proportion to 38%.
Nationally, 34.5% of New Zealand police officers — 4602 of 13,358 — are women and, on average, in the Otago-Southland region, women make up 22% of the constabulary.
The resort’s newest recruit, Constable Stacey Kerin, graduated on November 21.
Originally from Oamaru, Const Kerin said almost half of the recruits with her were women.
"It was always seen as a male’s job back in the day, but now females can help just as much as males can [and] sometimes females can have better perspectives on some things ... The more variety [in the police] the better, and the more we can help every individual out."
One of Queenstown’s longest-serving officers is Sergeant Kate Pirovano, who has been in the police force for 23 years and based in Queenstown for 15.
When she was at Police College women made up about 20% of her intake — and when she first started working in Auckland she could count the number of female colleagues she had on one hand, Sgt Pirovano said.
She said it was wonderful to see the number of young women now joining the ranks and joked they might have to "swap lockers with the guys soon".
It was "really good to see the girls out there doing it — they’re very capable young ladies."
Female police officers in Queenstown worked in a variety of roles, including personal protection, airport security, road policing, alcohol harm, the Criminal Investigation Branch and front line.
While none are involved in search and rescue at present, Sgt Bridget Martin used to be in the SAR team in Auckland and is now one of only two women in the 22-person national disaster victim identification team.
Sgt Martin was deployed to Christchurch after the 2011 earthquakes, and was also deployed there in March following the mosque shootings.
She had one day back at work after a holiday earlier this month, when she was deployed to White Island to help identify victims of the volcanic eruption.
"Really, it’s about getting the person back to their loved ones, Sgt Martin said.
"It’s a case of gathering all the information about a victim before they died ... putting it all together and getting an identification on the victim.
"When you haven’t experienced something before, you just rely on your training."
Being stationed at a regional station, such as Queenstown’s, did not limit opportunities within the police, but having supportive colleagues and families was vital.
"You have to be able to be quite resilient and have a very resilient family.
"They have to keep home going and you have to do your job 110%. You’ve got to have the support at home — you don’t want to do what I do and worry about what’s going on at home.
"And the people that stay behind and do ‘business as usual’ are just as important as the people [responding on the ground] — everyone is a massive team."
