The Prime Minister and the Victorian Premier have both backed the state’s former police chief commissioner, Christine Nixon, after it emerged she went to a pub for dinner on Black Saturday.

Ms Nixon failed to mention her night out at the Bushfires Royal Commission on Tuesday when she was grilled over why she left the emergency control centre at 6:00pm rather than staying to brief the Emergency Services Minister.

Her evidence left the impression that she monitored the unfolding disaster from home.

The Victorian Opposition and some federal MPs are now demanding that Ms Nixon be sacked from her role as head of the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.

On ABC local radio Ms Nixon defended her decision to dine at the North Melbourne pub on the night of the fires.

“I certainly wasn’t intending to mislead anybody,” she said.

“I did say in the statement I gave the commission that I had a meal and I didn’t say obviously at the time that I had gone to a local hotel and had a meal with two friends.

“And that’s all it was. It was a very quick meal and I went back home again and received many calls and obviously monitored the situation.”

Ms Nixon admitted at the Royal Commission that she should have done more on Black Saturday to make sure that adequate warnings were being given to communities under threat.

She was aware that people had been killed and others were missing when she left the emergency control centre.

But she said she did not believe that going out for dinner affected her ability to monitor the emerging disaster.

“Technology these days is very capable of finding where you are,” she said. “Clearly I had my phone with me and was able to be contacted.

“I simply had a meal. There was no celebration, there was nothing else and I think this is just a way to attempt to undermine me, to portray it in this fashion.

“I didn’t mislead the Royal Commission but people are going to make that judgment.”

Resignation calls

Four days after Black Saturday Ms Nixon was offered the job as head of the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority.

She had already resigned from the police force. She says that despite realising she should have done more on Black Saturday, she had no hesitation in accepting the job.

“When the Premier asked me and the Prime Minister asked me, then I felt like they had faith and I believed that I could do it,” Ms Nixon said.

But Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu is outraged by Ms Nixon’s performance on Black Saturday.

“I think Christine Nixon’s position is now untenable and I think it’s untenable because I don’t think she can maintain the confidence of the very people she has to work with as the head of the reconstruction authority,” he said.

“I think Christine Nixon should go.”

Some federal politicians have joined Mr Baillieu in calling for Ms Nixon’s resignation.

The seat of McEwen was hard hit by the bushfires and local member Fran Bailey is seething.

“My office tells me the phone is running off the hook. My constituents are very angry. I don’t think that they could believe it,” Ms Bailey said.

“And I can understand their feeling like that because how could anyone walk out of a command centre with the information that was starting to be gathered about Australia’s worst natural disaster and go home firstly, but secondly then to blithely go out to dinner with friends in a pub?”

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says it is not a good look for Ms Nixon.

“I’m here to listen rather than to pass judgment. I respect the judgments of my colleagues,” he said.

“Fran and Ted are much closer to all this than I am. For me this is really my first day of intensive involvement with the aftermath of the terrible bushfires.”

But Premier John Brumby has backed Ms Nixon.

“If you look back on that day, she, I think, probably made an error of judgment. She should have stayed at the incident control centre,” he said.

“But there were many people I guess across the state that day who, if you said in hindsight, would you do things differently? They have said that they would do things differently.

“So she made an error of judgment, but I don’t think that affects the great work that she’s done as chair of the bushfire authority.”

A statement from a spokesman for the Prime Minister did not refer to Ms Nixon’s performance on Black Saturday, saying only that Kevin Rudd had full confidence in Ms Nixon and the work she was doing leading the bushfire reconstruction.