Originally Posted by
Sunfish
I have enough experience of Australian organisational ability, Australian politics, the Green movement, regulators, public servants and Australian unions to categorically state that what you propose, if implemented today, would be an absolute disaster for the country. Do you want me to spell it out? Let Coulson and company do the job and tell the AFAP to but out.
Funny how in Australia we can provide governmental or private sector contracted to government services for Coastwatch, Maritime Search and Rescue, Air Ambulance, Police Aviation, Military, Aerial Firefighting using smaller aircraft without an apparent issue but Aerial Firefighting using larger aircraft is impossible and would be a "national disaster"? How do those other services seem to operate without being in a state of "national disaster" whereas Coulson are the only people on the planet who can ever perform large scale aerial firefighting? I don't begrudge AFAP at all for trying to develop a native large scale aerial firefighting capability and provide long term jobs for Australians in one of the fire prone nations on earth.
As for interference from the "Green movement" etc, we're not going to bring up those "greenies caused the bushfires" lies again are we? Which have been debunked by the
Chief of the NSW RFS, the
former NSW Fire Commissioner, the
Chief of the Vic CFA,
various scientists,
frontline Fire Brigades,
frontline Firefighters, more frontline Firefighters,
even more frontline Firefighters,
Green politicians themselves...
And whilst last summer's bushfires may have been replaced by Covid as the topic for uniformed "experts" to argue about on the internet, were you aware that the
NSW Government released their inquiry into the bushfires in August? You should have a read, because almost every lie about those fires that was repeated throughout the media last summer was debunked.
Fuel loads weren't substantially higher than previous years, greenies weren't stopping hazard reduction, primary cause of the scale of the fires was the dryness of the vegetation and extreme weather conditions, arson was not a cause of any of the major fires and hazard reduction burning only has a limited effect on the most severe fires.
Whilst not commenting directly on who should be providing the pilots the inquiry backed more use of larger air tankers, RPAS, better funding and more use of local simulators with training carried out by the RFS, not an external provider.