Truth might be the first casualty of war, but it doesn’t do so well in natural disasters either. The legacy media and the green-left are repeating endless lies, such as that “funding for fire-fighting has been slashed!”, despite the fact that even the Rural Fire Service Commissioner has gone on the public record strongly denying the claim.
But that’s just the beginning of the tide of lies and nonsense spewing from the chattering classes. “The government is sitting on its hands!” Also nonsense. Despite the fact that emergency services are the responsibility of state governments, the Commonwealth has been assisting at the request of the states. Australian Defence Force personnel have been involved from the beginning – and dramatically scaled up in recent days. The government has announced a further $2 billion for bushfire recovery, on top of the billions already allocated to drought relief.
The government is also looking to the long-term thinking necessary to living in one of the most fire-prone regions in the world.
Scott Morrison has flagged a major rewrite to rules covering hazard reduction, land clearing and where homes can be built following the devastating fires that have ravaged Australia since September.
There’s a lot of bandwagon-jumping going on with regard to fuel reduction burning, and what too many people romantically imagine were indigenous fire practises. Yes, the Aborigines used fire. All the time. But the sort of burning practised by Aborigines simply isn’t feasible in a modern, settled society. When you have houses, farms, livestock, setting fire to the undergrowth, leaving it to burn, and moving on, just isn’t an option.
Mr Morrison said there was “a need to address issues around hazard reduction for national parks, dealing with land clearing laws, zoning laws and planning laws around people’s properties and where they can be built in countries like Australia, up and down the coast”.
There have been fires as big, and even bigger, than these in the past. One of the big differences, though, is that there are far more people and houses in harm’s way. The “tree change” movement has much to answer for.
The PM said there were “many contributing factors” to the fire season, none more significant than the drought which had “created a tinderbox around the country” and seen “these fires run for long periods of time, particularly when there is no dousing rain that has normally followed.”
The issue of “fuel loads” was also “very clear”, Mr Morrison said.
“That has been a constant source of feedback by those on the ground,” he said.
“Issues in national parks and issues of hazard reduction and how that has worked over a period of time, that needs to be looked at undoubtedly.”
dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/scott-morrison-signals-backburning-shake-up-in-wake-of-bushfires
Burning will almost certainly have to be augmented by mechanical clearing. People living in certain areas will just have to accept the unavoidable risk that reduction burns can and do get out of hand. That’s the nature of the beast. If people want a tree-change bush retreat, they have to accept that the bush is going to burn.
Other areas will probably have to be declared off-limits for housing.
The only thing that’s certain is that there’s no going back 200 years. Australians have to find a new way of living with one of the most fire-prone landscapes in the world.
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