On Friday afternoon, tens of thousands of Australians congregated in their local cities to protest the federal government’s inaction on climate change in the wake of the nation’s bushfire emergency crisis.
Since September, ferocious infernos have torn families and communities apart. This bushfire season has claimed 28 lives, including three firefighters, and destroyed more than 2100 homes.
As fires continue to burn, the conditions have been described as “apocalyptic” and likened to “an atomic bomb”.
Protests around the country were organised in response to the ongoing bushfire crisis. Here are some of the most powerful signs, seen across the country.
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For goodness sake, can we NOT have a royal commission into this crisis. It will be an absolute waste or resources at this time and will give far to much waffling room for the politicians.
There was a royal commission into the 1983 bushfires, but a lot of those recommendations have still not been implemented. Royal commissions are great for a gab fest, but when has anything ever changed after them? Ironically, one of those recommendations was reduction of forest undergrowth, but as it turns out (according to the experts) dense undergrowth and fuel loads were not a contributing to these current spate of fires.
The same happened with the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria
Scott Morrison's words yesterday:
“We don’t want job-destroying, economy-destroying, economy-wrecking targets and goals, which won’t change the fact that there have been bushfires or anything like that in Australia,” Morrison told Sydney radio, 2GB.
“The suggestion that there’s any one emissions reduction policy or climate policy that has contributed directly to any of these fire events is just ridiculous and the conflation of those two things, I think, has been very disappointing.”
“continue to consider our policies carefully here”
“I think the public opinion on this issue, has been heightened across a whole range of factors and climate is one,”
“But I mean, there are a range of other things … the drought, which is not unrelated to the issues we’re talking about, but the hazard reduction and how we manage that in the future, because hazard reduction has proved to be very difficult in recent times because of the drought.”
Still too focused on hazard reduction with word from a frontline expert, NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, being that hazard reduction, while a useful component "is not the panacea".
Moreover, Morrison had the appearance of being more protective of his surplus than his constituents as this crisis unfolded, only loosening the purse strings when he was humiliated domestically and internationally with his personal political survival came under question.
Morrison's focus is too short term - yes, we need improvement to our fire fighting and prevention capabilities, but we also need the underlying causes of greater bushfire addressed. Meanwhile, Morrison's still making noises like a climate change sceptic, which is not the leader needed for these times.
Scott Morrison's leadership is being tested and is still falling far short of the mark.