An Australian police commissioner has apologised for using a force helicopter to fly to an interstate conference and says he won’t make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush flew from Melbourne to Hobart for a meeting with his counterparts from around Australia and New Zealand on Monday.<\/p>\n
A commercial airline flight between the two cities takes about an hour.<\/p>\n
Bush said in a statement more effort should have been made to find a commercial flight but using the helicopter didn’t cost taxpayers extra.<\/p>\n
The force’s helicopters were leased and a certain number of hours were already paid for each month under the agreement.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry that I made a bad decision,” Bush told ABC radio on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“If we’d been patient, more diligent, we would have booked a commercial flight and… would have been the most appropriate course of action.<\/p>\n
The helicopter stayed in Hobart on Monday night but Bush wasn’t sure if that was due to weather or a technical reason.<\/p>\n
While there was one less police helicopter in Melbourne that night, it didn’t impact operational matters, he said.<\/p>\n
Taking the chopper was a bad decision because of how it was perceived and because a different call could have been made, he said.<\/p>\n
“It was the wrong call… perceptions are critically important to the public,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I will not be making the same mistake again.”<\/p>\n
Victoria Police also has a fixed-wing aircraft but a spokesperson said that plane was “deemed unviable due to strong winds in Tasmania” on Monday.<\/p>\n
Bush instead used a police chopper that’s mostly used for training and also acts as a backup for the force’s main helicopter.<\/p>\n
There were “no additional financial cost associated with this flight” as the chopper wouldn’t exceed its allocated hours in October, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Bush went to Hobart for the Australian and New Zealand Police Commissioners Forum, where cross-border police operations, national security decisions and police deployments were discussed.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Police Commissioner Richard Chambers joined him on the helicopter flight, as they had attended the same counter terrorism conference in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Bush will return to Melbourne on a commercial flight.<\/p>\n
It’s the first major faux pas by the chief commissioner since taking on the job in June following a tumultuous time for the force.<\/p>\n
His predecessor Shane Patton resigned after an overwhelming no-confidence vote in his leadership from officers in the police union, linked to an 18-month pay dispute.<\/p>\n