Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. CommBank, CSL and Qantas were all privatised by Labor, and now you're set to follow those footsteps and let Airservices Australia sell off billions in firefighting assets, though Airservices will lease these back anyway. Why let Airservices sell out our hardworking aviation firefighters and risk aviation safety with an accounting trick that will cost more in the long term?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is true that our aviation assets are ageing. At our federally leased airports, we have firefighting terminals that are quite old, as well as a fleet of fire trucks. It's estimated it's about $8 billion worth of assets that need replacing. The government has made no decisions about how it is going to fund the replacement of those assets. Airservices has requested to explore whether there are opportunities for Australian super funds to invest in these assets, and I have suggested that that can continue, but the government has made no decisions about this. But I want to make sure that our firefighters—wherever they are, but particularly the ones that I have responsibility for, at Airservices—continue to be government employees always but that they also have the best possible equipment to fight fires at airports. I want to make sure that that is the case, but the government has made no decisions about this matter at all.