Zachary Rolfe repeatedly spoke of receiving a paid holiday if he were to ever shoot somebody in the line of duty, his ex-fiancee told detectives.
The police officer, who was found not guilty of the 2019 shooting murder of Kumanjayi Walker last month, denies making the comments.
The Guardian Australia has revealed the comments after the release of a transcript which documents a 2020 interview between detectives investigating the Yuendumu teenager's death and Rolfe's ex-fiance.
In it, the woman, who has not been named in the media, tells the officers that Rolfe brought up the idea to his then partner several times during the course of their relationship, reported the Guardian.
“Zach said on several occasions to me… that he would like to shoot someone so then he can go on a paid holiday,” she said in the interview.
In a later statement, she said Rolfe said words to the effect of “if I shot someone I could go on a six-month holiday”.
The Guardian, which posed questions to Rolfe surrounding the alleged statements, said the officer "strongly denied" making any of the comments.
The interview's transcript, which ran to 92 pages, and the later statement were both submitted by the prosecution before the trial to determine their admissibility.
However the presiding judge, Justice John Burns, declared the material would not help the jury in determining Rolfe's guilt or innocence.
“Nothing in the evidence of the tendency incidents could… assist the jury in understanding or inferring the accused’s state of mind of the charged events,” he said in a January 2022 decision.
Rolfe met his ex-fiance while they were both stationed as police officers at Alice Springs station. They became engaged just weeks later, but eventually broke off the relationship.
In the nearly two and a half-hour long interview, the woman said Rolfe raised the matter "maybe" five times, and that she considered some of them to be made seriously.
"I think some were considered and some were flippant. ’Cause you have to consider something to say something on several occasions."
She also stated that Rolfe had laughingly said to her "I always get my gun out first" when on the job, and that he did not turn on his body-worn camera, because he did not want people at the station to see what he had been doing.
In a statement, Rolfe questioned his ex-partner's version of events and her motives for doing so.
“I strongly deny making any of these alleged comments. During our relationship, despite the seriousness of her allegations, she never mentioned them to her superiors or fellow police officers.
“Despite me being such an apparently bad guy, [she] stayed with me until I broke off the relationship with her in 2018 and was devastated when I did so.”
When asked by officers why she had never reported the comments, the woman replied that she was in love with Rolfe at the time, and convinced herself that the comments were made in jest.
