They need to know how to kill. That takes priority

Spot

He doesnt even defend his position because his religion says we are all sinners and deserve to die and he will get a new earth when its over

Spot

It's not their job.

Australia's defence forces are decreed to be "on duty" 364/365 days a year, 24 hours a day.  Leave is a privilege, not a right.

The reason why it has taken so long to act is because well, it hasn't.  The ADF has been in action from early on in the NSW bushfire emergency providing logistic support with over a thousand diggers.   That has now been extended to Victoria.

The ADF is in line to provide logistics support and air and naval support.

The ADF is not trained to fight fires, except for a small core of firefighters who handle fires on the ADF's ranges.   When I served, back in 1983 during the Ash Wednesday fires, the ADF was called out.  I drove a water tanker.  The South Australian CFS however didn't want us helping them and so most diggers sat on their arses beside the road waiting on a decision.  They ended up going back to barracks.  The Brigadier wasn't happy about that and made some loud noises.  He was politely ignored.  I doubt much would have changed since then... 

cods wrote on Jan 1^st, 2020 at 9:52am:



They are not trained to fight fires because fighting fires is not seen as their primary duty, Cods.

When you are prepared to have diggers learning how to fight fires, rather than learning how to defend you and your property from overseas attackers, get back to us, OK?

You can have one or the t'other, not both.  Simples really.

Diggers can be taught how to fight spot fires and tidy up after the firefront has passed, putting out smouldering logs, etc.   They are not though.   The civilian fire services don't have the money to devote to training them.   

rhino wrote on Jan 1^st, 2020 at 11:03am:


And your experience in the military consists of, what, exactly, Rhino?   

Yes, there are some people like that there but the majority of soldiers/sailors/airmen are paid to think and think they do.   People who merely obey orders do not go far in the ADF. 

cods wrote on Jan 1^st, 2020 at 7:31am:

I can only speak for Navy Cods but, we all undergo regular firefighting training to the extent of containing a fire on a ship or submarine however, that training is not really extendable to the huge firestorms that we are seeing at the moment.      Whilst there have been members ot the armed forces on the ground for some time assisting where they can, it comes down to a few other reasons including, who would fill the gap left by defence assets if a military threat comes up and, who pays for what is a. non defence requirement.

Believe it or not, everything is costed in defence down to the last slice of bread and all that becomes the defence budget for the year.    When something comes up like this, Defence - if you like - provide "a quote" for services and the Government provides the money from another source.   I have worked in a number of System Program Offices (SPOs) where each element of our program has the annual cost for fuel, maintenance, alongside costs etc built into that ship's monetary budget for the year.  All is good until Cyclone Larry hits and now we are looking at extra fuel, extra stores, extra everything and the defence Budget just doesn't stretch to that.  So, it becomes a piddling contest between Ministers to find the money to augment defence.    It is indeed an eye opening experience.   

You will find that most of the defence force are itching to get in there and help, but they can only move when the Defence Minister tells the Chief of defence they can go