Gold Coast criminals tuning in to cops

The Queensland premier says he doesn't know when new technology will be rolled out to stop Gold Coast criminals listening in on police operations.

Police in Brisbane have already upgraded their old analogue radios to more secure digital channels.

But police on the Gold Coast and in parts of Logan, south of Brisbane, radio each other on old analogue signals, meaning they can be intercepted by scanners.

"This government inherited a situation where the police had a communications network that essentially the criminals could listen into," Mr Newman said.

Mr Newman declined to say when he'd like to see the switch to digital on the Gold Coast.

"You can go to the police commissioner and the police minister - they can talk about the rollout for the digital radio network," he said.

The premier said his Liberal National Party government had made a multi-million dollar commitment to converting police radios from analogue to digital.