Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

As the senator has pointed out, the changing nature of our bushfire seasons require us to take a new look at how we address the assets we need in order to combat them. One of the things that the royal commission's interim report did highlight was that we need to have a look at that ongoing Australian capacity. As the senator would be aware, in the past we have used leased aircraft for a number of reasons. One is, clearly, that the cost of purchasing aircraft is extremely high, and there is the maintenance of specialist firefighting equipment which may only be used occasionally. We hope that it would only ever be used occasionally. We compare that with the capacity to lease aircraft and also the opportunity to share resources with colleagues and counterparts in the Northern Hemisphere, whose seasons are often countercyclical.