Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the government, I rise to address the MPI raised in the name of Senator Urquhart—but I think that by strings, pulleys and mirrors Senator Watt was, in fact, talking.

To begin, I make four points. The first point is that Labor still have no idea what they're talking about in respect of the Emergency Response Fund—absolutely no idea what they're talking about—and they're ignoring the facts. The second point I make is that they have no idea about aerial firefighting—absolutely no idea at all. The third point I make is that they would not have a clue, in accordance with their MPI, what an expert is. And the fourth point I make is that we have prepared very well for the 2021 disaster season.

Like Senator Urquhart and Senator Watt, I am no expert. As a commercial helicopter pilot, I flew firebombing helicopter droppings for years and I put water on active fires. I did this up until a few years ago. I was also a director of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, NAFC, as it's called, along with each and every one of the commissioners of the state and territory rural fire services, and I did that for about three years. In case Labor doesn't know, the NAFC is the organisation that leases and manages the national aerial firefighting fleet, which is funded by the Commonwealth. That funding was doubled recently and that funding is merely the start of the process for funding the national fleet of aerial firefighting aircraft. This is the fleet, of course, that Labor are trying to convince us to develop. I also gave evidence at the royal commission into the 2009 Victorian fires and I spent about 22 days at the South Coast fires, as well as six days fighting fires throughout the ACT and the Queanbeyan-Palerang local government area.

Unlike Labor's ideological climate-change activist ex-commissioners of the rural fire services, who they like to quote—and I'm very surprised that you didn't quote them this time—I would like to raise a few points and to mount an informed and practical vantage point from which to do it. Let me develop the points I made initially: you still, as a party and as individuals, have no idea—