To hazard a half educated guess to some of the questions posted earlier, I can only imagine that:
1) Reason for not employing a second full-time co-pilot and having a crewman in the back at all times adds extra weight to the aircraft and also adds to the salary budget, which in this case would be around 16 extra co-jos, going from what the media report said. That soon adds up to quite a bit of money...so first of all, extra weight and salaries to fork out for. There are always going to be sacrifices in world that has restrictions and is not perfect.
2) I think the aircrew officers/aircrewman they employ are very experienced operationally and it would be a huge loss to not take advantage of that knowledge and experience. There is an argument for employing an experienced crewman with 1000hrs of crewing plus a bare CPL vs a 1000hrs VFR pilot from a more secluded part of general aviation...operationally, who would perform better? I personally would prefer the crewman next to me. Nothing against the 1000hr guy or gal who could probably fly basic VFR stuff better than the crewan, but would not have that operational or IFR or CRM experience. Food for thought.
3) I believe that SAR/EMS these days in the land of Oz is made up of around 70% plus hospital transfers (ie point to point IFR) and the rest is primary stuff (ie the occasional winch, road side landing etc). So for the greater majority of the time you will have a co-pilot up front for IFR operations and the remainder of the time, when its required for the crewman to be in the back, that small proportion of time they are away from the cockpit and winching or providing a clearance etc...So overall, in my humble opinion, it sounds like the crewman will never be too far away from the front of the aircraft. Besides, with a paramedic, (maybe even a nurse on some jobs) and doctor and rescue crew down/the wire guy in the back, how many more people do you need back there? As for training a crewman, it takes quite a bit to train someone in overall operations. Winching is not as easy and straight forward as some people would think, having seen some crewman I have worked with get people in and out of some very tight spots in very trying conditions. Overall, its the operational experience which is so hard to get and it takes time to get that...time that a co-pilot off the street would take years to obtain.
Anyway, that is my humble few words to help answer some of the questions people have asked. Overall, sounds like a good gig and like anything in this world, no matter what you do, there will always be people who knock you and applaud you for different reasons. I still think a huge applause is due...its creating some opportunities for a lot of people and its bettering the industry as a whole, regardless of how they choose to implement this new strategy.