As the ashes cool from Australia’s catastrophic bushfires, there are big questions to be grasped. Why did they happen, and what can we do about it? To that end, the Morrison government is hinting that it will convene a royal commission. As the saying goes, never hold an inquiry unless you know the outcome; and, indeed, almost everyone in Australia is certain that they have all the answers, already.
For the green-left, the answer is the same one that they have for almost everything: climate change. Many others, though, are adamant that the answer is one already put forward by multiple bushfires commissions, for the last 80 years: hazard reduction and mismanagement of the landscape, especially the wilderness. It seems that state governments, who are responsible for the latter, are worried that a royal commission will come to the same conclusion. Hence, they’re already marshalling their political forces against a commission – especially in Victoria.
For Morrison, then, a royal commission must seem like an unmissable opportunity to seize the narrative and hold negligent (mostly Labor) states to account for the disaster.
Most of the fires have taken place in forests for which the states are solely responsible. State governments know they would be held hostage to a royal commission of which they are part and they are probably petrified that once the monster is out of its cage, it will come to the conclusion that state governments grievously failed to insist on more backburning and to ensure the fire services were properly funded, staffed and equipped. The cunning Victorian government has already voiced its opposition to a royal commission and it is no co-incidence that it has a discreditable history of neutering the volunteer firefighters’ service and expanding the power of Daniel Andrews’ mates in the highly-unionised city fire brigades.
But there is every threat that the commission will run out of the government’s control and simply become a bully-pulpit for the loudest shouters – the Krazy Klimate Kult.
It will be the main vehicle that the Labor party, the Greens and the whole climate change and media lobby will use to beat the government over the head […] anyone with the right to appear will have an open go to say whatever they want in their so-called evidence. Witnesses will disparage anyone they wish and make endless speeches about the evils of climate change, how it alone has caused the bushfires and how the government is solely responsible for the whole disaster […] Picture Greta Thunberg in full flight, scowling and screaming ‘How Dare You?’ and you have a good idea of what the atmosphere will be like in a royal commission into bushfires.
spectator.com.au/2020/01/brown-study-154/
As per O’Sullivan’s Law, unless the government keeps a firm rein on the commission’s terms of reference and the appointment of its commissioners, the whole thing will become yet another Green-left circus. The left will almost certainly attempt to shoehorn the likes of a Flannery, a GetUp! activist, or some spotty “yoof” representative into a position of control.
Some form of inquiry is absolutely necessary, if nothing else, to call to account culpable state governments who’ve so far taken shelter behind the Media-left’s unhinged pile-on on Scott Morrison. A royal commission is not altogether unmerited (indeed, the roster of those most loudly opposed to it suggests who has the most to fear). But, unless the Morrison government displays the steely resolve of a John Howard, as opposed to the watermelon spinelessness of a Malcolm Turnbull, there is grave danger of it becoming the Klimate Kult’s very own inquisition.
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