00:02Good afternoon, Jo. Well, the government has confirmed that it has sent two military planes
00:07over to the Middle East as part of its contingency planning in the situation that the Australians
00:13stranded in the Middle East are unable to get on commercial flights back home. The ABC
00:18has confirmed that two military planes, a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A, which is
00:25a heavy transport aircraft and a KC-30A multi-role tanker transport aircraft were sent to the
00:33Middle East after the war began on the weekend. This is part of Operation Breach and is a precautionary
00:40measure to support the whole of government contingency planning going on. Now, for safety
00:45reasons, we haven't been told where in the Middle East these planes have been sent, but
00:50this does come on top of the six crisis teams that are on their way to the Middle East as
00:55well to help provide consular support. They will help organise flights and make sure that
01:01Australians who are stranded in the region have a way to get back home if they wish to
01:05do so. The Coalition have been calling for the government today to use Australian Defence
01:11Force assets to get Australians out of the region if commercial flights aren't available.
01:18Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Ted O'Brien said that the government's response so far has
01:24been flat footed. But the government says that it's considering all options available
01:29to it to try and get those Aussies home. Now, there's an estimated 115,000 Australians in
01:36the region. Of course, some of those will be living over in the Middle East and won't be
01:40trying to get back to Australia. But we do know that thousands of them are trying to get
01:45home. The first flight back to Australia since planes were grounded made it back into Sydney
01:51last night carrying 200 Australians. There's three more flights like that one coming back today as
01:59well from Dubai. But many flights are still cancelled. The latest from Virgin Australia is that all of
02:05their flights in and out of Doha today, tomorrow and most likely on Saturday are cancelled. And there's
02:12still uncertainty when the airspaces will be back to normal. Now, the Prime Minister says that he's
02:18working with the United Arab Emirates as well as airlines to try and secure more flights to get
02:24Australians home. He's thanked the work of the staffers at the Department of Foreign Affairs and
02:30Trade, who he says have been working around the clock, and also thanked those Australians as part of
02:36those crisis teams who are voluntarily going over into these dangerous situations to help their fellow
02:43Australians get home.
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