I hear they are sending SES crews from VIC as well now ?
Bloody hell, what a circus.
Must be a few, well connected "wanna be's" in the VIC SES
Airservices Australia trains volunteers they largely source through the SES to be air observers on SAR missions. Commercial aircraft get chartered and the eyeballs come from this pool of trained volunteers. Volunteers are flown on both training and real missions.
When I was in the SES in my younger days I flew on a whole bunch of SAR missions. I personally never saw anything, but whenever something was found, somebody's eyeballs found it.