Yeah fair call re: stepping into the convo re: whether the government should assist. As for emergency services, in regional areas it's way underdone and mostly volunteers - some of whom were busy trying to protect their own homes. Why should all the responsibility be on the shoulders of volunteers? Maybe that's a good argument for why the government does need to be involved to a degree.
If we had the planes to use on the fires at the beginning, the disaster might not have happened. A bit of a false economy to not spend it on the planes and then have to spend it afterwards.
