Airport shutdowns loom as federal police consider industrial action

Thousands of travellers could be grounded if Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers walk away from their posts at Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney airports in the proposed industrial action.

The union's president Alex Caruana said AFP officers were the lowest paid in the country.

"These men and women that are out there keeping the community safe, they need to be respected by government," he said.

The proposed action by AFP's union, the Australian Federal Police Association, could also include walkouts at parliament, nuclear plants and military barracks.

The strike would start "as soon as possible", Mr Caruana said.

The AFPA will submit an application to undertake industrial action once approved by the union's lawyers.

But the decision to cease operations at airports would rest with the individual facilities, he said.

"This is a last resort. It's not something that we want to do and it's not something that we planned to do," the union president said.

The federal government's offer included an 11.2 per cent wage increase over three years as well as increases to use of force and unsocial hours allowances.

The government also offered a one-off payment of $871 if the union voted in favour of the terms before the deadline.

An AFPA survey of 1799 federal police said 90.25 per cent of members opposed the government's proposed pay rise while 9.75 per cent backed the agreement.

"We've been presented with an offer that we feel is undercooked and rushed and it doesn't represent a fair pay deal for the work that the members are doing," Mr Caruana said.

He compared the $871 payment to a $6000 sign-on bonus offered to airport firefighters in recent negotiations.

"I'm not suggesting that the firefighters don't deserve the $6000 but we can surely presume the work that AFP members do is of equal value," he said.

"Once our members saw that, they couldn't unsee it."

More than 800 AFP officers of the union's almost 4000 members threatened to resign unless a better offer for pay and conditions was made.

"We have members looking at jobs and leaving to the other jurisdictions simply because we are the lowest paid jurisdiction," Mr Caruana said.

"We lost nine members from one station in Canberra last month."