Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Griff for the question and also for his passion and commitment on this very important issue for our nation. The first point to make is that the Australian government doesn't specify the type or number of firefighting aircraft for professional fire and emergency services representatives in the states and territories. However, what we do is take advice, and we work extremely cooperatively with the states and territories, through the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, which advises the Commonwealth and state and territory governments every year about the assets that are required.

Traditionally, firefighting assets—aircraft in this case—have been leased for a number of reasons. The first one is the very high cost of purchasing and maintaining these specialist aircraft. There's the fact that the Australian bushfire season, while growing longer, generally mirrors the Northern Hemisphere's bushfire seasons. But also, and really importantly operationally, is that leasing them gives us much greater flexibility in terms of the aircraft that we need to lease every year to meet the particular demands of the bushfires then. It also allows us to make better use of technology, as it is emerging quite rapidly in this area.

I reject the part of your question that says we didn't have enough this year. According to the experts, we did. We were asked for support for one additional large aerial tanker, and we provided funding straight away for four as soon as we were asked for that. Although some firefighting aircraft are shared with the Northern Hemisphere, as I have described, the NAFC will contract 169 specialist aircraft across the country this year. But it's important to note that three-quarters of those already remain here in Australia and are largely contracted and owned by the state and territory governments.