 Today is a great day for Queensland, it's a great day for the safety of all Queenslanders, particularly in south-east Queensland, the greater Brisbane metropolitan area. All 1.4 million people will be a lot safer, a lot more certainly be a lot safer in their communities and in their streets, knowing now that we have a new police helicopter covering south-east Queensland. This is all part of obviously a strong plan for a brighter future for policing right across Queensland ensuring that we protect families and protect communities. We also made a commitment at the last election for two brand new helicopters and I'd like to say thank you to Queensland Surf Lifesaving for their partnership here today. It wouldn't have been achieved without the QPS and the Surf Lifesaving working in together. I'd just like to also acknowledge Gavin Verde and obviously Corey Metz as well as the Commissioner for Police here and John Brennan and George Hill is here also with us. I see George around here somewhere over here and it is as well as the local member Mark who's here to see what is a very important day. At the last election we made a commitment obviously $18 million over four years to obviously deliver two brand new police helicopters and obviously this Queensland Police Helicopter is part of having a new helicopter with the latest technology, with a top-gun crew, keeping the lives of Queenslanders, families and communities safer like never before. Obviously the Polar One has obviously been tasked to over 5,000 missions so far today and I'm sure that this helicopter will certainly deliver on that commitment of even keeping our communities even safer. The type of operations range from everything, the type of operations will range from everything but obviously from drug detection to traffic offences right across the board from gathering information and intelligence for both major and serious crimes right across south-east. So again this helicopter will be a great asset for the community keeping the Greater South Brisbane safer and ensuring that our streets are even safer in the future. I'd just also like to ensure and say thank you to Peter Bird, the pilot and the crew who certainly will be tasked to ensure that our skies are safer but also those communities are safer. So in just in closing I'd just like to say that this new helicopter has the latest technology with a top-gun crew that will keep Queenslanders safer in their communities and on their streets and it's a great credit to everybody involved. Commissioner if you'd like to say a few words. Thanks Minister and if I can just acknowledge you and in particular local member Mark Stewart and to thank you very very much on behalf of all of my colleagues in the Queensland Police for giving us such a wonderful platform. The success of Polair 1 down the Gold Coast has resulted in the government's commitment to this second helicopter and we're really really grateful that we now have two helicopters protecting the Greater South-Eastern. I'm hopeful that maybe I'll be able to twist the government's arm into the future and get a few more across the state. I'd also like to acknowledge CERFLO Saving Queen's Air in particular for the wonderful partnership we have in operating these aircraft. I think the synergies between our two organisations, Saving Lives and Kicking the Community Safe makes it a very very good partnership with one which I hope will continue for many years to come. I'd also like to acknowledge the Archerfield Airport Corporation for the wonderful work that they've done in allowing us to be here and we think that this partnership as well will be something that will really advantage us bearing in mind that it provides us with the perfect location for the entire Greater Brisbane area for this type of operation. The aircraft has been staffed by members of our PSRT and we'll rotate and train many of our people to use the aircraft in a way which will obviously be good for all of the community and as the Minister quite rightly said it plays a range of roles in identifying and helping to suppress crime in our community. I'd like to thank the media in particular for being here today on this cool morning but it's wonderful that you cover this milestone and it really is a milestone for not just the Queensland Police Service and not just the Government but the entire community of Queensland. So thanks ladies and gentlemen. So does this open any questions at all? You're right. You've got a nice cool morning. We'll see the total cost of that. The last election we said that we'd deliver two brand new helicopters for the South East and it's $18 million commitment over four years and we've delivered it in less than two and a half years and that's great credit for the Queensland Police Service and to serve life-saving. Look obviously the first Polar One completed over 5,000 tasks this particular Polar Two will meet the needs for whatever the Queensland Police Service directs it to and its limitations are not going to be restricted and we're going to ensure by having two new police helicopters in the skies the communities will be safer but also our streets will be safer as well because one of the other capacities as well as doing out and doing reactive and proactive policing is collecting data for major operations as well. So criminals simply will not know where police are and the police will be watching you at any time. Look we've made an $18 million commitment and obviously we're delivering on those commitments and as you just heard from the commissionaries he's more than happy to put up whatever proposals. We've made sure that we revitalizing frontline services and making sure a police and the community have the latest technology to keep Queensland even safer. We're seeing crime rates go down right across the whole estate and it's not just the work that the police do it's the work that the community does is engaging and assisting police and we all know that certainly by having this technology in the skies it will certainly make Queensland as an even safer place to live and raise a family. Look obviously I can get the exact details for you but we've made the commitment to ensure that we have two permanent helicopters in the sky. Look no doubt these two helicopters as well as other aviation units across the Government Air Wing as well as both on a federal level as well will be working conjointly and task throughout not just the G20 but other operations that occur right throughout the state. That's correct it has the latest technology I know the media crews have a lot of great technology as well but this technology certainly gives the capacity for a vendor that can be over two and a half kilometers away not even knowing that he's been obviously being followed by police and what that does is it increases the safety of the community and the police and their operations because they can gain that information they can resolve things in a lot more less forceful way. Would you like to have the police on your feet be crying out for something like this or is this only because we've got the resources to do it? Look before the last election the community and the police were crying out for a new airborne assets and we made that commitment of two new police helicopters over the next four years we've delivered that early and obviously this is part of ensuring whether it be from iPads to iPhones to robotic forensic crash units to Zebedee scanners working with CSIRO to have the most advanced scientific units now not just in Australia but around the world as well as this also adds to the capacity of these two new police helicopters and ensuring that we've not just been able to be seeing these helicopters in the sky but giving peace of mind to the community that police certainly have the resources to keep fighting crime down and keeping our streets safe Erin you've got a question for the commissioner? No thanks Erin as you know at the Gold Coast we have about eight and it will be the same here the only thing different will be initially during Brisbane we're going to rotate a lot more offices through so that will mean more training time I think that ultimately that will be to the benefit of both our offices and the community to have offices is one of the critical issues to operate in 24-7 mode and I want to certainly give confidence to the community this isn't about budgets it's about the safety and security of the community we will fund whatever is necessary to keep the chopper in the air as long as it's necessary to do the jobs that we know are necessary to fight crime but also actually keep the community safe one of the areas and one of the reasons why the government's been so good in providing the helicopter is to help us in the area of close meeting suits you know that we are very very restrictive in our policies in that regard the helicopter gives us another tool to be able to successfully and more safely conclude those types absolutely if we'll only ever be limited by the range of the chopper as many of you know Pollya won't help with the Thunderbird floods almost 18 months ago now so wherever the need is in Queensland obviously and within the capabilities of the aircraft will be different can you see a third Pollya 3? look I think I mentioned earlier I'd love to see a greater partnership with particularly CERF while saving Queensland of the synergies our organisations have but again that'll be up to me persuading government of the need for the organisation it's not a bottomless pit out there we know that so we've got to really be very direct and focused on what we need for our people to do their job better oh look I certainly understand the issues around how long it's taken us to get helicopters and I'm grateful that the government has done that for us and hopefully in the future we may see a few more look at the size of this state though and the fact that we invested very heavily in fixed wing aircraft to move officers generally to hotspots and to also simply move them around the state that was the need at the time we've now got the ability to have the helicopters and again as I said we're very grateful that the government has taken this step we're very grateful to our partners at CERF by saying just another comment here because the police union as well is I'd like to thank and compliment Ian Leavers and the police union for their advocacy and their hard work over the last 10 years in trying to get a police helicopter into the skies and their commitments and their champion also went a long way to ensure that we made that commitment at the last election for two new police helicopters in the skies of Queensland so we'll continue to work with the police with the police union to ensure that we keep delivering for the safety and benefit of the communities and safer streets right around Queensland