I may be Australian, but I have not directly suffered the impact, at least not yet. Nevertheless, I can express the atmosphere now both politically and environmentally speaking which are the confusion on backburning and the general nature of the Australian environmental system and how the government should be responding. It is devastating to know that at least half a billion animals have been killed in the bushfires. I’m from Melbourne and was quite nervous about going back to Canberra for uni, since it was the most toxic air ever been recorded among countries who monitor air quality. Melbourne has had a few hazy days now, with poor air quality. Nevertheless, this is nowhere near what Sydney or Canberra has suffered. On top of this depressing situation, Scott Morrison has managed to annoy every Australian with his poor management of the situation, deeply frustrating us all.
We have always had a bushfire season and we always expect it during the summer, but this is unprecedented not even the Black Saturday bushfires match the magnitude of our current mega blazes, now known as Black Summer. I was about 10 or 11 years old and I distinctly remember the news coverage and my school helping with the bushfire relief by organising garbage bags of clothes and boxes of canned food that filled the hallway outside our classrooms. Bushfires is a part of the Australian life cycle, affecting both the environment and people whether its direct or indirect, everyone is affected.
Malcolm Turnbull our former and in my opinion more favourable prime minister, who was deposed by Mr Morrison talked some sense about the whole situation to the Guardian. He discussed the projects he was doing for decreasing pollution and meeting our emissions targets. These projects included great technological solutions that was sensitive to jobs and the economy which is a theme for the right-wing liberal party. (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/12/scott-morrison-cant-afford-to-waste-the-bushfire-crisis-when-australia-urgently-needs-its-own-green-new-deal)
In fact, we have had five prime ministers in five years at one stage, as every prime minister who was brave enough to confront and improve our energy and climate policies was deposed by their party.
This contrasts with the left-wing labor who mainly looks at social policy and their solution seems to be higher taxes to fund what I believe to be great things, but unsustainable to the Australian taxpayer. Whether liberal or labour we have poor policies regarding carbon emissions and land management, including backburning. Honestly, I’m confused about what our backburning policies are, but the firefighter’s department warned the government about the imminent dangers of fires but were ignored by the government. In addition to this our firefighters are volunteers not professional workers; they give up their time and effort to fight fires and many have died in the process. They are also the largest volunteer firefighters in the world. Our fire department in regional areas are under resourced and underfunded. The situation was so bad that the army has been called in to help injured animals and help fight the fires. The news was filled with many ordinary people rescuing koalas. One of our biggest concerns is that the koalas could go extinct, especially koalas on Kangaroo island where they are one of the few populations left free of chlamydia. The Platypi have also experienced a steep population decline and they are just a few of the unique Australian animals endangered.
The Indigenous Australians are at the very centre of the solution the aboriginal land management council should launch a campaign called ‘connection to country’ and bolster partnerships with various industries like national parks, agriculture, schools, universities and mining to inform us about fire management. This is to ingrain it in Australian culture and educate the public about indigenous land management and learn how to properly ‘listen to country’ as indigenous people do.
The Australian government ranging from highest levels to local councils love to regulate everything. The level of regulation is astounding and now everything is more expensive due to increased regulation. I’m also saying that no regulation is also a problem but when regulation starts impeding business and interactions with economic inefficiency, we have a problem. The bushfires have taken a huge hit to our economy especially the very backbone of Australian wealth which are the household consumers, ordinary Australians, as a result well known Australian brands like Rivers have taken a hit. To preserve our unique Australian wildlife, culture and business we must acknowledge the Aboriginal people are the best people to protect our country from fire, Indigenous communities will often say “we are fire country”. Instead of trying to regulate a static relationship with the environment, we must become more dynamic and adaptable by listening to our environment. We must listen to country. Regardless of whether you believe in climate change we always have been a fire country.