Australia: Defence forces can play a broader role in disaster management

By Anthony Bergin and David Temmpleman

Originally Published By: THE AUSTRALIAN 

When natural disasters occur, the community expects the nation’s full resources to be mobilised to the extent necessary to save lives and property. That’s why Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, a former senior army reservist, is considering an unprecedented compulsory call-out of part-time reserves to help combat bushfire emergencies amid the infernos facing NSW and Queensland.

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The Defence Force will maintain its military lines of command and control, rather than come under civilian leadership. Defence forces can contribute an array of capabilities in communications, power generation, lift and mobility air evacuation, and fuel and water transport. They add numbers whether it be removing fallen trees or tarping damaged roofs.

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But Defence is likely to be used more frequently in the future to ­assist in domestic counter-disaster tasks. With climate change there will be larger and more frequent extreme weather events and an ­increased vulnerability of growing populations in coastal and bushfire-prone areas. And trends indicate that, per capita, there will be fewer volunteers and, on average, they are getting older.

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The effectiveness of water-bombers was demonstrated last week when the NSW Rural Fire Service deployed a highly man­oeuvrable C130Q to disperse about 10,000 litres of fire retardant to rapidly neutralise the South Turramurra bushfire. The US Air Force has recently contracted to install retardant delivery systems for seven C130H models being transferred from the US Coast Guard to the US Forest Service.

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