Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the MPI. I do note that Senator Urquhart talked about a long-term trend in the fire seasons, which are becoming worse and longer in duration. That is all very, very clear. I think everyone accepts that.

I want to talk about a static problem, a static issue, because, for as long as I can remember, looking at the aerial firefighting service, we've seen a fire season commence and then we've seen a whole bunch of very sophisticated, very capable aircraft or helicopters fly in from overseas. They fly in from overseas and they deliver this firefighting capability. That might sound good—we are leasing these aircraft rather than purchasing them—but the reality is that we have a long-term need. The other reality is that we are paying a huge premium, particularly in circumstances as the load varies for some of these aircraft. But what people need to understand is that, when you see the fire trucks racing towards the fire, there is a money truck racing towards the ports—a big truckload of taxpayers' money that is going to the ports of Australia and getting shipped off overseas. That's what's happening. The only thing that stops these trucks from rolling onto the ferries to head off overseas is that there's a Future Submarine project truck in front of them or a Watergate truck in front of them. We ship all our money off overseas.

Let me tell you what the tragedy here is. I know a number of Australian business men, people who work in the aviation industry, who would love to stand up an aerial firefighting capability. But, because the contracts that are issued by the Commonwealth are so short, if they go to their bank and say they would like to purchase a helicopter or a large aerial tanker the bank looks at them and says, 'Sorry, you have only got a two-year contract.' The Commonwealth knows that this is going to go on year after year after year. Simply extending the contract term to a reasonable time frame would permit these Australian companies to invest, with the support of banks. But no, we don't do that. We trickle out money on a short-term basis. That absolutely favours the overseas entities. They have made the investment. They have contracts in their home jurisdictions. That's a fundamental problem we need to look at. This problem could be solved. By simply changing the length of the contract terms, we would have more Australians investing in capability that resides here. And when other jurisdictions overseas are having fires we'd be sending them overseas and they would be bringing money back to Australia. That's what needs to be happening, and that's what's missing here.

This is the responsibility of the federal government. We heard Senator Molan say that the funding comes from federal government coffers. We recognise that this is a national process, yet we hide behind the fact that we are getting the states to look at these things individually. In actual fact, we are trying to create national emergency laws. The ADF does a fantastic job weighing in on that. We have CASA. We have federal funding going to the aerial firefighting service. We need to take charge of this. We need to have a sovereign aerial firefighting capability—and it's not too hard to do. I've given the answer in my contribution today: just a tweak of a few contract terms and the problem would be solved. Australian business men and women would then stand up the capability here. Every time we issue a short-term contract for an aerial firefighting service, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face. We have to fix this.