Victoria’s top cop apologises after taking police helicopter across Bass Strait to Tasmania | Australian police and policing
The Victorian police commissioner who used one of the force’s helicopters to fly nearly 600km from Melbourne to Tasmania to attend a conference has apologized for his “mistake”.
Chief Superintendent Mike Bush crossed the Bass Strait using Victoria Police’s “secondary” helicopter and attended a meeting with his counterparts in Hobart; where a mechanical issue caused the helicopter to be grounded Monday night.
He returned to Melbourne about 4.30pm on Tuesday and police said his absence from Victoria had no impact on community safety.
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In a statement acknowledging his first mistake since becoming commissioner in June, Bush said more effort should have been made to find a commercial flight, which typically takes an hour. He said the use of helicopters does not cost taxpayers extra.
“I’m sorry I made a bad decision,” Bush told ABC radio on Wednesday.
“If we had been patient, if we had been more diligent, we would have booked a commercial flight and [that] …would be the most appropriate course of action.”
He said although there was one less police helicopter in Melbourne that night, this did not affect operational matters.
“This was the wrong call… perceptions are critical to the public,” he said.
“I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Victoria Police also has a fixed-wing aircraft, but a spokesman said on Monday the aircraft was “deemed uninhabitable due to strong winds in Tasmania”.
Bush, a former New Zealand police commissioner, instead used a police plane used mostly for training and as a backup to the force’s main helicopter.
He was in 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 because they were attending the same counter-terrorism conference in Melbourne.
Bush will return to Melbourne on a commercial flight.
The commissioner has been widely praised by the government and the police union since taking office after a turbulent period in the force.
His predecessor, Shane Patton, resigned following an overwhelming vote of no confidence in his leadership from officers at the police union linked to an 18-month pay dispute.
A police spokesman said the only time Bush used one of the force’s planes was when he flew to Porepunkah in northern Victoria, the site of a deadly police shooting in August.
