Sounds like the military is saying "stop hiding civil services in the military budget". Or put another way, the cost of climate change is gradually being revealed.
Seems like the ADF or federal government could a spin out a disaster relief division of the defence force.
If about half of the force (if I read it right) was deployed for natural disaster relief since 2019 there’s obviously a need for something more professional than ses/ community volunteer groups.
This ^. Been saying for years that we need a dedicated, well funded disaster recovery agency/service, something like FEMA, that can deploy at a moments notice and have stockpiles of supplies ready to rollout.