Unluckily, there is a lot of miss-information on what our Federal Government can and is allowed to do under our Constitution.

Emergency Services is an responsibility of each State Government. to get federal Government assistance they need to ask for it. Under our system of government Federal Government cannot step in before assistance is requested. In order the Federal Government to go and buy firefighting aircraft, they would have to Parliament and get approval from the Upper & Lower Houses of Parliament, but they are allowed to give grants to States Government to do the same.

Both NSW and Victoria State Governments waited until the last minute before asking for Federal Government assistance, despite the fact, some of these fires have been burning for months. (The fires on the Central Coast stated mid October and are still burning).

In these types of Emergencies, Defence is not equip to fight fires but they can provide Logistic support when requested by The State Government. In fact according to my Defence sources various Army area commands were told to start preparing personnel and equipment to support the firefighting efforts back in early December.

It is only the Navy who has any numbers of trained firefighters but they are crews on board various ships, (I used to be one and I have fought bushfires in the late 70's 80's on defence lands and the 1994 Bushfires). but in those days we had 1000’s more personnel. And the majority are based in Northern Australia these day and it’s a sign of the low numbers of servicemen is that the Army Reserve has to be called out. And also now the Federal Government with agreement of the States are directing the form and depth of support to assist the fire affected communities.

Neither New South Wales or the Victorian Government are complaining that they haven't received the support from Federal Government.

The people mainly complaining are the media.

BTW, when Scott Morrison when on Holidays left the Deputy Prime Minister as the Acting Prime Minister, at the time there wasn't a state of Emergency declared and neither State Government had asked for any significant assistance.