Crowd funding and volunteer pilots to the rescue

[mickjoebill]

For those not familiar with Australian politics, the Govt has a record of not spending allocated, and promised money on disaster relief. ($4.5B not distributed to bushfire victims)
Clearly, the scale of the flooding disaster is beyond the ability of military, but why no prearranged plan to enlist civilian assetts?

Following the 2009 bushfires I proposed to bushfire royal Commision the creation of a civilian air patrol, to support SAR and also to deliver warnings to towns.

The civil air patrol in the USA is a worthy enough model.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/07/locals-take-charge-of-helicopter-food-and-rescue-operations-in-nsw-floods-amid-frustration-over-adf-efforts?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[John Eacott]

For those not familiar with Australian politics, the Govt has a record of not spending allocated, and promised money on disaster relief. ($4.5B not distributed to bushfire victims)
Clearly, the scale of the flooding disaster is beyond the ability of military, but why no prearranged plan to enlist civilian assetts?

Following the 2009 bushfires I proposed to bushfire royal Commision the creation of a civilian air patrol, to support SAR and also to deliver warnings to towns.

The civil air patrol in the USA is a worthy enough model.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/07/locals-take-charge-of-helicopter-food-and-rescue-operations-in-nsw-floods-amid-frustration-over-adf-efforts?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Where did you get your figures of $A4.5b mjb and are you referring to the Federal Government? The last report available here (https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/administration-the-national-bushfire-recovery-agency) for the 2019-20 indicates an initial $A2b which increased to $A2.7b, and $A2.103 had been allocated by July 2020.

If you are referring to the unfortunate crowdfunding where the wording did not allow monies to be spent on the Bushfire victims, and instead had to go to the RFS, that was nothing to do with the Federal nor State Governments.