Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks for the question. Senator McKim, you are a former parliamentarian in the Tasmanian parliament and you know that firefighting is the responsibility of state and territory governments. I have been in regular contact with Minister Ellis, who is the minister responsible for emergency management in Tasmania. We've spoken about the challenges facing first responders in your part of the world.

One of the things that is distinctive about fighting fires in the Tasmanian context is that there are a lot of wild places and there are a lot of amazing communities too. Our government seeks to be the best partner that we can be to the Tasmanian government as they seek to gain control of this particular set of events. We have deployed the national large air tanker to Tasmania to assist in firefighting efforts. We have also deployed one of the heavy-lift helicopters to assist Tasmania in its firefighting effort.

I will make an additional point, Senator McKim. This is the first high-risk weather season where those assets have been available at all. The reason that they're available is because our government came to office understanding that more would need to be done to deal with emergencies and to deal with natural disasters. That is because all of the advice that we have from scientists is that natural disasters are going to become more frequent and more intense. Now, our government accepts that science; it's not clear to me that the people opposite us do. But it is on that basis and on the experience of communities across Australia that we have made the investments that we have, by increasing funding in the national aerial fleet, increasing funding for a national stockpile and standing up a National Emergency Management Agency that can support states and territories at times like these.