Bushfires: India trip off as Scott Morrison to call on foreign air help

Scott Morrison has cancelled official visits to India and Japan and will try to bolster the nation’s firefighting air power by requesting overseas support.

Melissa and Paul Churchman with Scott Morrison at their destroyed farm in Sarsfield, Victoria, on Friday. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison has cancelled official visits to India and Japan and will try to bolster the nation’s firefighting air power by requesting additional support from overseas.

Mr Morrison had a telephone conversation on Friday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who conveyed his condolences and said he looked forward to welcoming his Australian counterpart to India “at a mutually convenient time later in the year,” the Indian foreign ministry said.

A day after being heckled on the streets of the fire-ravaged NSW town of Cobargo, the Prime Minister called a snap National Security Committee meeting for Saturday and announced financial assistance to fire­fighters in Tasmania and South Australia.

The NSC meeting comes as the government prepares to ramp up the involvement of the military ahead of another potentially catastrophic day of bushfires in Vic­toria and NSW.

“The role of the Australian Defence Force will become greater and greater in the days ahead, particularly when the things they do — the airlifting, the evacuations, the engineering support, the ­accommodation, the evacuation centres — all of this (will) become more and more required as these fires get larger and larger,” Mr Morrison said on Friday.

Later, in an interview on the Nine Network, he flagged borrowing extra firefighting capacity from overseas. Asked “Have you been working the phones trying to get more resources from overseas?”, the Prime Minister said: “Of course.”

Asked “Can we expect any more planes?”, he said: “Yes.”

On Friday, Mr Morrison insisted the federal government was meeting every request to aid the states in their firefighting efforts, even as former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins lashed him for failing to pick up the phone to foreign powers to obtain more aerial ­assistance in the midst of the dis­astrous bushfire season.

Mr Morrison said the Defence Force and other agencies were not just waiting for requests but trying to pre-empt them.

Compensation for volunteer firefighters in SA and Tasmania — where fire risks are ongoing — will be available after payments of up to $6000 a person were activated; SA has also asked for aircraft.

Mr Morrison said he was not taking his hostile reception in Cobargo personally, and would continue to visit fire-stricken com­munities. “I’m going to keep turning up in places that need our support and our assistance and our encouragement, and I’ll continue to do that each and every day.”

He said he was inclined not to proceed with what was meant to be an important trip to India and Japan to foster closer security and defence ties amid the ongoing bushfire disaster.

Earlier, a “furious” Mr Mullins called on Mr Morrison to get on the phone to his counterparts in France, Portugal, Spain and Canada and ask for their water bombers to help combat the bushfires.

Mr Mullins, who leads a group of 29 former fire and emergency chiefs and has been helping to fight fires on the ground in NSW as recently as New Year’s Eve, said only seven of the 140 aircraft available were major water tankers.

“Our Prime Minister should be on the phone to Justin Trudeau from Canada right now saying ‘Justin, we need 20 or more of your water-scooping purpose-built water bombers that are in mothballs during your winter. Get them down here. Can you get them here in five days?” Mr Mullins told ABC radio.

“Large aircraft don’t put out fires, they can just give the firefighters on the ground an edge.

“But if you had 20 to 30 of these medium-sized aircraft that have rapid turnaround, you could make a material difference.”

Mr Mullins claimed a detailed business case put by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council to the government in 2018 to increase funding for aircraft leases was “languishing in Canberra”.

A government spokesman confirmed the business case had been received and an extra $11m was given to the National Aerial Firefighting Centre to allow for extended leases in 2018-19 and in this bushfire season.

“The government is listening directly to the current fire chiefs and experts, and simply saying more and bigger is not the ­answer,” the spokesman said.

Both the NSW and Victoria rural fire commissioners have indicated they are satisfied with current resourcing levels.

NSW RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rodgers said they would be at “surge capacity tomorrow” with more than 3000 ­fireys and 800 aerial and ground support vehicles to be deployed at 18 key regions around the state in anticipation for a Saturday where fire conditions would be “the same, or worse” than New Year’s Eve.

Mr Rodgers said the service was adequately prepared, rejecting Mr Mullins’s call to borrow aerial assistance from overseas.

“No. We have the resources we want. We cannot get, you cannot … there is a limit to how many aircraft can safely operate over fire grounds,” he said.

“It is not all about the big jets flying around, it is all about the local people, first attack, getting there and putting the fires out before they become problems.”

Victorian Country Fire Authority chief fire officer Steve Warrington said he was pleased with the “tremendous” response and amount of resources given to help the fire effort but warned that there were not enough fire trucks to get to every home.

Additional reporting: Mark Schliebs, Emily Ritchie, AFP