As I’ve written before for The BFD, Victoria is Australia’s wokest state, and, one way after another, they’re paying the price for their “progressive” virtue-signalling.
From rampant African gang crime to failing energy infrastructure, Victorians are reaping the rewards of electing socialist Daniel Andrews. Twice. What’s the old saying about being fooled not once, but twice?
But Victoria’s woke progressiveness is getting more and more dangerous.
Victoria carried out just over half the fuel reduction burns it planned in 2019, ultimately burning one-third of the public land that had been recommended by the Black Saturday bushfires royal commission.
The figures have been condemned by bushfire experts and landholders in fire-affected areas, with one accusing Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the Andrews Labor government of trying to avoid accountability by moving from a hectare target to a less transparent “risk reduction target”.
The information has come amid a horror fire season that has seen 25 people killed and thousands of homes lost in southeastern Australia, with at least two to three months of hot, dry conditions to go.
Even Andrews’ union masters are calling him out – although there’s more than a whiff of self-interest, here.
The forest industry and the CFMEU have called for fuel loads in national parks to be aggressively managed through hazard reduction burning and selective logging.
But, the fact remains that Victoria’s environmental bureaucracy has been shockingly lax in managing fuel loads in its forests.
An Andrews government spokeswoman on Wednesday said DELWP conducted 251 planned burns totalling 130,044ha in 2018-19 […][that] constitutes just 53 per cent of the 246,396ha of planned burns, and 34 per cent of the target recommended by the Black Saturday royal commission […]
The 2018-19 figures show DELWP did not even try to meet the commission’s recommendations in setting its target, with the 246,396ha of planned burns constituting just 64 per cent of the recommended 385,000ha.
Despite their furious denials, as already reported in The BFD, green groups are at least partly responsible for stymieing hazard reduction burns. The environmental bureaucrats, meanwhile, are furiously trying to cover up the grim evidence of their own failures.
Former CSIRO fire scientist David Packham slammed the Andrews government’s 2015 decision to move from hectare targets to “risk reduction targets”.
“Hectare targets were a process by which the department and government could be held accountable,” he said. “Such people don’t like being held accountable, especially when they’re doing the best they can to subvert what the commission came up with.”
Mr Packham also attacked the government for its refusal to release DELWP mapping of fuel loads across the state, which were previously publicly available […]“The level of secrecy from DELWP would make a nuclear research facility jealous,” Mr Packham said.
Further demolishing the excuse that green activists aren’t to blame for the lack of bushfire preparation, Packham also points out how political meddling has been at work from the start.
He said he believed that even the 5 per cent target recommended by the royal commission was insufficient. “The royal commission originally concluded that 5-8 per cent ‘at a minimum’ would be appropriate,” he said. “When the final report came, the 5-8 had turned into 5 per cent and the word ‘minimum’ had disappeared”[…]
Forest Fire Management Victoria chief Chris Hardman said the move away from hectare-based targets had been endorsed by an expert reference panel and was adopted “because it represented a more effective approach to reducing risk for life and property than a hectare-based target”.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/bushfires-victoria-wide-of-mark-on-target-burnoffs-in-2019/
Well, that’s really worked out, now hasn’t it?
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