There are no plans to remove firefighters from Australia's regional airports despite a vocal union campaign that says there's a government proposal to do just that.
The United Firefighters Union launched its "three minutes to live" campaign on Wednesday to oppose a federal government plan that they say will close five regional airport fire stations and prevent the extension of firefighting services to other regional airports.
The changes would see the threshold for firefighters to be stationed at an airport lifted from 350,000 passengers a year to 500,000, leaving Coffs Harbour, Broome, Newman, Gladstone and Ayers Rock unprotected, the UFU says.
Union secretary Peter Marshall said the proposal could turn any one of Australia's 6700 yearly aircraft fires into a catastrophe.
"There's around 6700 incidents per year. We don't put that figure out there, because we don't want to scare people," he said on Wednesday.
"But the reason those incidents don't eventuate into a tragedy and loss of life is because of the rapid intervention of the aviation firefighters."
Opposition spokesman Anthony Albanese said his party would not support the changes that would see regional job losses and significant reductions in response times.
But Transport Minister Darren Chester labelled the campaign a diversionary tactic by the union, following Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' mismanagement of the CFA crisis.
He said there were no plans to disband any firefighting units at airports and findings of a review to explore a range of improvements of the service would be delivered to the government next month.
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