Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

It is arrogance, Senator Polley, from the Prime Minister. What would they have told him if he had deigned to meet with people with decades of experience in fighting fires? Just one thing of the many things they would have told him was the need for more water-bombing aircraft in this country. They weren't the first to make this point. The National Aerial Firefighting Centre, which coordinates water bombers across this country, first requested funding from this government four years ago. Four years ago they asked for funding to increase the firefighting fleet. No response. They submitted a business case to this government seeking a permanent funding increase two years ago. I knew about it. I'm the shadow minister; I'm not the government. I knew about this request and I asked about it in estimates last year. They didn't respond to it then. It was nine months after Labor made an election commitment to have more water-bombing aircraft and it was six weeks after the opposition leader, Mr Albanese, asked for more firefighting aircraft before the government responded—and it was months after the fires began.

This is one of many examples that I could give, and I could reel off examples of the government and the Prime Minister failing the leadership test in the response and the recovery as well. There will be more time to do that in the future. This Prime Minister comprehensively failed the leadership test over this summer. His actions have put Australia at risk. He needs to show leadership in the future. (Time expired)