[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Thanks Cav, for the info.

We thank all the paid support roles the armed forces supplied which brings me back to this overview section posted.

And still asks the question Why doesn't Australia have a national type guard, (part of the ADF) own all the equipment necessary and are professionally trained, paid to fight fires on the front line.

Overview

The ADF is not trained, equipped or certified to undertake ground-based or aerial bush firefighting and does not get involved in the direct act of fighting bushfires outside Defence property.
The Work Health Safety Act 2011 (Commonwealth) (WHS Act) limits the range of tasks that can be undertaken by Defence personnel, which includes the fighting of bushfires.
The state and territory governments have primary responsibility for the protection of life, property and the environment, and for coordinating and planning emergency responses or recovery actions in disaster-affected areas within their jurisdiction.

Seems the whole world is run by insurance companies.

Here is another interesting study with the ADF being used in the black Saturday bushfires in 2009:

The legal danger is that in the intensity of an emergency, with lives at risk, ADF members will not hesitate to do whatever they can to help.29 This is risky because action undertaken in response to an emergency may interfere with people’s rights, for example: entering, damaging or destroying property or closing roads.

Each state and territory has legislative arrangements establishing various emergency service agencies and empowering such agencies to lawfully take action that could otherwise constitute a tort or crime.30 However, none specifically contemplates the possibility that ADF personnel will be used to augment emergency services. Therefore, ADF personnel have no more power or authority when assisting emergency services than any member of the public. But, unlike a private person, ADF personnel do not qualify for protection against civil liability under ‘Good Samaritan’ legislation because assistance rendered by ADF members (in that capacity) occurs in the course of paid duty.31 Therefore an ADF member (or the Commonwealth as the ‘employer’),32 if subject to a civil suit arising from disaster response activities, may (in the absence of any other legislative protection) only be able to rely upon common law defences, such as ‘necessity’. Further, some actions may give rise to criminal liability.

https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resour...-a-case-study/

Looks like it's a legal and political grey area for the Federal Government to use the ADF in disaster relief and the ADF members themselves and the federal government are open to criminal and civil lawsuit with no legal protection that our emergency services have.