Police do not lack the equipment to deal with the threats they face currently, and escalation of force serves no purpose here - and may indeed backfire as armed criminals now need to themselves bring more firepower to deal with the police threat.

In a terrorist hostage situation, it is not the lack of military grade guns, ammo and armour that prevents police from resolving the situation, any more than it is a lack of access to tanks, submarines or bombers. The same applies for other terrorist attacks such as Bondi stabbings or Bourke Street massacre. The equipment available to police is already sufficient to deal with such threats, and they have successfully dealt with them. Potentially response times and training with equipment to give officers more confidence in their ability to use it in a dangerous situation may be warranted, but the equipment is not the issue.

If there is an event that requires the use of military grade equipment, the military should be sent in. This may necessitate the creation of a rapid response task force to deal with such matters, however currently we have not faced any such issues.

There is no need to provide more dangerous equipment to the police, and it does not appear as though there will be a need in the future.