COMMITMENT TO SUPPORT RFS OPERATIONS AT DEFENCE BASES IN NSW

The Albanese Government will ensure the New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service has access to RAAF Base Richmond, RAAF Base Williamtown and HMAS Albatross to support aerial firefighting operations with an extension to the current agreement through to 2029.

This agreement will ensure the NSW RFS can continue to protect the local communities and our environment through aerial firefighting operations facilitated from these Defence bases.

The NSW Rural Fire Service is the world’s largest volunteer fire service, providing fire and emergency services to approximately 95 percent of NSW.

Defence has supported the NSW Rural Fire Service by providing access to Defence sites over the past decade. 

Defence is proud to work with our emergency services to keep the community safe in times of need, including in the Black Summer bushfires, the 2022 Eastern Australia floods and, most recently, the North Queensland floods.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy:

“This commitment provides important certainty for the RFS and supports their critical work to keep Australians and communities safe from bushfires.

“This relationship goes to the heart of the concepts of national defence and resilience, as outlined in the National Defence Strategy, by bolstering the NSW Rural Fire Service’s ability to respond to natural disasters.

“It is a further demonstration of the outcomes that can be achieved through greater partnerships between the Commonwealth, states, territories and industry.”

Quotes attributable to Member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman:

I welcome the five-year extension for the NSW RFS at RAAF Richmond.

As the epicentre of the 2019-20 Gospers Mountain fire and the location of multiple floods in recent years, my community appreciates the need to be well prepared for disasters.

Those of us who lost homes in the 2013 fires recognise that that if the current aerial fire fighting fleet had been at Richmond at that time, the losses might not have been so great.

Having certainty about that the RFS aerial operations and fleet can continue to operate at the Base is of great benefit to my community and beyond.  

Not only does the Base allow uninterrupted operations, but its strategic location means aircraft can respond to fires up and down the eastern seaboard.