Police chief makes first faux pas, regrets wrong choice
A state police commissioner flying interstate in a force helicopter admits he made the wrong decision but insists there is no additional burden on taxpayers.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush traveled from Melbourne to Hobart on Monday for a meeting with counterparts in Australia and New Zealand.
The commercial airline flight between the two cities takes about an hour.
“This was the wrong decision,” Bush said in a statement.
“For a commercial flight, we should have looked more carefully.”
“Although there was no impact on our operational capacity, community safety or financial costs to Victoria Police as the flight was within our contracted hours with the air wing provider, it creates a poor impression at a challenging time for our organisation.”
Although Victoria Police has a fixed-wing aircraft, a spokesman said on Monday the asset was “deemed unsustainable due to strong winds in Tasmania”.
Mr. Bush instead used a police helicopter that was used mostly for training and also served as a backup to the force’s main helicopter.
The force’s helicopters are rented and a certain number of hours are paid each month within the scope of the agreement.
“This threshold will not be exceeded for October, so there is no additional financial cost associated with this flight,” the spokesman said.
Mr Bush traveled to Hobart for the Australian and New Zealand Police Commissioners Forum, where cross-border police operations, national security decisions and police deployments were discussed.
New Zealand Police Commissioner Richard Chambers joined him on the helicopter flight, as the two men had attended the same counter-terrorism conference in Melbourne.
Mr Bush will return to Melbourne on a commercial flight.
This is the chief commissioner’s first major mistake since taking office in June.
A police spokesman said the only time he used a helicopter to travel was when he flew to Porepunkah in northern Victoria, the site of a deadly police shooting, in August.
The alleged gunman remains elusive despite hundreds of police officers searching for him from the air and on foot at the height of the operation, due to the deaths of Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart.
Despite the extensive search, police helicopters’ operating hours are still below the allotted time for this month, the police force said.
