Peter Beattie

We live in a world packed with natural and man-made dangers. Every year thousands of people die or suffer from disasters such as fire, flooding, storms, industrial accidents, earthquakes, etc. Recent adverse climate, social and industrial changes stretch our resources to the limit and require a new approach to the problems.

We believe protecting the life and property of our citizens shall be the prime role of the state. The current system of badly equipped and poorly co-ordinated state authorities is inadequate and often unable to fulfil its objectives. What we need is powerful, federally funded Emergency services able to cope with any kind of disaster. It shall have the following capabilities:

• Be highly mobile and able to reach every corner of our land or territory within minimum response time.

• Can rescue or evacuate large numbers of people in any conditions, on land or sea, utilising vehicles, aircraft and watercraft.

• Be able to fight large bush-fires using modern methods.

• Provide search and rescue services for:

- ship, aircraft or major road accidents

- mountaineering, remote bush and ocean emergencies

- earthquakes

- storms and cyclones

- major accidents such as explosions, fires, bridge, mine, tunnel and building collapses, leaks, contamination, etc.

- epidemics and diseases

- floods

The new Emergency Services will unite and reinforce the existing state and territory units. It will have vastly better co-ordination and planning, being able to greatly reduce the loss of life and property for the benefit of the whole community. In order to fulfil its duties the organisation will need highly skilled and disciplined staff, as well as modern equipment. People from an armed forces background can make good use of their skills and provide the backbone of the personnel. Equipment such as large water-bombing aircraft, helicopters, transport aircraft, amphibian and all-terrain vehicles, watercraft etc. will give us a better chance to cope with distress.

Also see: Space – Asteroid defence