Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, , 1:59:30 to 2:03:33
Senators discuss the funding history of the Northern Australia Fire Information (NAFI) service and concerns regarding aging NASA satellites causing gaps in fire detection.
Topics: Drought and disaster support, Agricultural productivity
Speakers: Senator Susan McDonald, Speaker 12, Mr Pat Hetherington, Senator Jana Stewart
Uh Senator Nafi has been funded since 2013, but through successive kind of different government departments have been responsible for it at different times.
$350,000. $150,000, $125,000, sorry, $175,000 a year for somebody else to do a job, which is manage uh bushfires. Uh extraordinary. Extraordinary.
Senator's Ms. Mende said those questions could be directed to the business.
No, no, I absolutely will, but I can't believe that you'd sign off on that. The government would say that's anyway. I don't want to get stuck on this because I've I've run out of time. So we know that in February 2026, ABC Rule reported problems with NASA's aging terror satellite could result in gaps of ten to twelve hours in detecting fires.
Thanks, Senator. So we became aware of those reports as well and have worked really closely with NAFI to understand what that capability gap might mean. Certainly we're we're continuing to work with NAFI and other partners to understand what those capability gaps might mean.
So just updating the room with our plans.
So given that this is the one tool that as I talk to station managers and farm operators across Northern Australia, they tell me is the only useful thing that government provides for them. Half of them didn't receive an alert.