BLAME GAME AGAINST THE GREENS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS FOR AUSTRALIA'S BUSHFIRE CALAMITY DOESN'T PASS THE PUB TEST

Environmentalists and the Greens in certain sections of the media and at the assertion of conservative "right wing" politicians like Barnaby Joyce, have effectively been made the scapegoat, the "blamegoat", for the bushfire calamity which has most of eastern Australia on a disaster footing waiting for the next dreadfully hot day, the next big gust of wind, to start another catastrophic fire.

If you want to get an objective view of who and what to blame, to some rational and practical extent, then best you don't tune in to Sky News or rely on the opinion of self annointed scribes in the right wing media in general whose opinions to date, as you could certainly expect, have been "politically motivated", as in an excuse to ram their own anti-Greens and anti-environmentalist convictions down everyone's throat, while gleefully and blissfully ignoring a lot of facts and evidence dispelling at least most of the accusations leveled at policies of the Greens to do with bushfire management, namely controlled burn-offs.

For the record, I am not a member of the Greens, I am not a member of any political party, not even an activist group. I have no political motivation whatsoever to write this. I am simply calling out what is absolute bullcrap.

 

The Greens, and at least a big percentage of environmentalists in Australia, are actually very respectful of controlled burn-offs of forest according to "Aboriginal tradition and customs".

The fact is, many, not saying all, people in positions of authority in fire fighting units across Australia are not respectful of controlled burn-offs of forest according to "Aboriginal tradition and customs". Their approach to controlled burn-offs is gungho and "come as she goes".

No thought, where such applies for example, of sparing 200 year old trees from fire damage by creating a fire break around them to engage in an otherwise neccesary controlled burn off.

 

Logistically it might well require a lot more prior planning, but simply what the Greens and most sensible environmentalists champion for, and there are a lot of them, is that controlled burn-offs are conducted with respect to not allowing certain old growth trees, and things of "Aboriginal heritage and significance", like a rock feature in a bushland setting, to be encroached upon by a controlled burn off fire.

If you don't think that is reasonable then you're not reasonable. Sorry to tell you. It's you and not the Greens and environmentalists whose views on controlled burn-offs is skew-whiff.

 

Besides the issue of controlled burn-offs, I would be amiss to not also make mention of the 80% or so cuts, yes that much, which the present NSW government has made to rural fire fighting services and units.

 

Get your head around that - 80%. I am not sure about the other states, including Queensland, but Gladys Berejiklian, that's the NSW premier, and her razor gang, have completely gutted the logistical resources and capabilities of rural fire services in NSW.

That's got to hurt. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars that they've lost in funding. Next time someone tells you that the Greens and the Bob Brown types are the bushfire menaces of Australia, tell them to come off the grass and not believe everything they read, hear and see.