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

[by video link] I wish to speak this evening about Australia's bushfire preparedness. We are now in the last week of August 2021. It's worth remembering that the fire season of 2019-20 began in September and lasted until March. By the time those terrible fires subsided, some 18.6 million hectares had been burnt, 34 lives had been lost in flames and another 445 deaths had been caused by smoke. Economic losses were $103 billion.

There had been plenty of warnings. As the bushfire season approached, 23 former fire chiefs and scientists warned the Prime Minister of the looming danger and urged him to boost the nation's aerial firefighting capacity. Scott Morrison couldn't be bothered meeting with them. As other experts issued a stark warning of above-normal fire potential for south-eastern Australia, the Commonwealth government sat on its hands, afraid to acknowledge the reality of climate change. Huge areas of New South Wales and Victoria were already engulfed with flames when the PM went on a holiday to Hawaii. He sought to defend the dereliction of duty with his infamous line: 'I don't hold a hose, mate, and I don't sit in a control room.' He should have been sitting in a cabinet room. The Commonwealth did provide assistance, especially Defence Force capabilities, but that came much too late.

This year's scorching heatwaves and the wildfires of recent months across the Northern Hemisphere again tell us that climate change is having an impact across the globe. We don't know what the next Australian fire season will be like, but it's inevitable that our turn will come again sooner or later. In October 2020, the bushfire royal commission recommended that the Commonwealth, state and territory governments develop an Australian based and registered national aerial firefighting capability, to be tasked according to the greatest national need. The commission recommended that sovereign capability include large air tankers and type 1 helicopter capabilities with supporting infrastructure, as well as other surveillance, transport and logistic assets. The Morrison government offered support in principle for most of the royal commission's recommendations, but notably not for the proposal for a national aerial firefighting fleet. Instead, they indicated that it was a matter for the states and territories.

In February, in a letter tabled in the Senate, the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management, Mr Littleproud, claimed that the government still needed 'a full and evidence-based understanding of the capability actually required'. I was hugely unimpressed by that. After all, we've had multiple inquiries, investigations and reports, including the 2020 royal commission, but once again the government was kicking the can down the road, finding excuses to avoid substantial commitments. Now, in the 2020-21 budget, the government has committed to a modest $11 million per annum boost in the funding for the National Aerial Firefighting Centre, bringing the annual Commonwealth commitment to $26 million, a very small change within the overall budgetary context or within the context of the potential cost of future fires.

There's still no acceptance of the need for a sovereign aerial firefighting capability and the substantial Commonwealth commitment that must go with that. The Prime Minister just can't bring himself to admit that he should have listened to the fire chiefs. The need for a sovereign capability is ever more apparent as the fire seasons of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere get longer and increasingly overlap, limiting the availability of leased large firefighting aircraft.

I don't expect that the government will change its mind. However, as we approach the fire season, I think that the Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience, Senator McKenzie, or, better still, the Prime Minister should make a comprehensive statement as to the Commonwealth government's preparedness to respond to a national bushfire emergency in the 2020-21 fire season. Such a statement should cover the Commonwealth's support for aerial firefighting, the Australian Defence Force capability and readiness, and the capacity of Emergency Management Australia and all other agencies that would support bushfire response and recovery efforts. On the basis of such a statement, we could all evaluate just how ready the Commonwealth government is. More dangerous fire seasons are coming and we need to be prepared.