What, you mean the ADF might condescend to doing what Dick's taxes trained and equipped the ADF to do?
It is an odd aspect of the Australian psyche that the government and its agencies consider their existence to be some kind of immutable fact, with pesky private citizens getting in the way of governments and their agencies getting on with the important work of ... hmmm ... what is the ultimate purpose of the Australian government and its agencies?
Without private citizens creating real wealth, there would be no taxes to pay for the ADF. And the ADF exists to protect the freedom of ... whom? All those companies which pay no company tax?
I repeat: My view is that Dick's scaremongering is inexcusable, as is his attribution of the MDX tragedy to the RAAF. But he's only doing what many of his opponents do when he tries to implement change. There's gunna be mid-airs and aluminium confetti and burnt bodies and every other disaster that plays on the minds of the travelling public. Although I'm pretty sick of Dick on these issues, I'm even sicker of the scaremongering tactics of his opponents.
(And I have zero doubt that the RAAF are consummate professionals in carrying out any and every SAR task imposed on them.)