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Emergency Services | March 27, 2018

Constituency Question - Hamilton Air Base

Victorian Parliament - 27 March 2018 - Ms KEALY  - My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. When will you fund stage 2 of the Hamilton Country Fire Authority (CFA) air base upgrade? South‑west Victoria has been hit hard by the recent fires. Air support crews dispatched over 50 loads of fire control material to fires with the essential support of the CFA ground crew at Hamilton CFA air base. I thank everyone who has helped battle these fires for their contribution. Over the past three and a half years the minister and the previous Minster for Emergency Services have been briefed about the vital need to progress the upgrade of the Hamilton CFA air base to assist planes to refill and refuel quicker, therefore providing for quicker turnarounds and more firefighting flights to be dispatched. Ground and air crews of Hamilton CFA air base need assurance that at the next significant fire event they will have an air base that will support them to despatch as many firefighting flights as possible. I therefore ask the minister: when will the funding flow to upgrade Hamilton CFA air base?