I can’t even sit on my own verandah anymore. Surrounded by smoke, covered in ash, checking the RFS website regularly, ringing friends and family as fires approach so many of them.
The land is parched and farmers are crying out for more water as we are warned to expect more mass fish kills. Who takes precedence – the irrigators or the environment?
No rain forecast before February.
Does anyone even care?
As catastrophe engulfs us, what is our government doing?
Union-bashing.
Refugee-bashing.
Labor-bashing.
Decimating the public service.
“Refusing to apologise” for blatant misdeeds by Angus Taylor.
It’s business as usual for the do-nothing Coalition sticking to their age-old ideological vendettas.
That isn’t leadership. It’s an inability to prioritise, to evaluate risk and manage it.
It is typical of this government’s approach to things when they focus on resilience and adaptation to climate change whilst refusing to even mention mitigation.
It is typical of Scott Morrison to dismiss a very sensible suggestion from Andrew Wilkie to adapt some RAAF aircraft to join the firefighting effort. If it is not Scott’s idea, then it isn’t even worth considering. We don’t need them says Scotty. They are too busy flying politicians around to sporting events and gala evenings and family reunions anyway.
In fact, Scotty doesn’t need advice from anyone. The Thody Review into the Public Service wasn’t even shown to Cabinet before Scotty swung his axe on 5 department heads.
As Laura Tingle points out, “under Coalition governments, [public servants] have often become little more than post boxes for the outsourcing of contracts to the private sector.”
There is no transparency, no accountability – we don’t know who is making decisions and on what rationale. Hell, we can’t even find out who gave Angus Taylor a forged document.
And when they return from their two months off, we will go back to the same tired old stuff – trying to wedge Labor, more reviews to ignore, more jobs and money gifted to fellow travellers, more porkbarrelling. Oh, and more crap about religious freedom and freedom of speech but only for some.
How many more homes and lives will have been lost by then? How much flora and fauna will have been destroyed? How many businesses will have gone under?
But hey – we are safe because Peter Dutton has stopped those bludging refugees from getting medical treatment.
So there. Ner ner de ner ner.
The Coalition government – ensuring there will be no integrity here!
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