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Dear Mr Morrison


adidas

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Watching in horror and feeling so helpless. Dear Mr Morrison, praying to god does fuck all. Do something that will help.

Taken from a friends FB page.

Spoiler

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Mallacoota. 10:30am.

4,000 people on the wharf. Trapped. You can't get in, you can't get out. Even the ocean is inaccessible. This should be the defining photo. And our Government is still doing nothing. Not a thing.

"Fire front not far away." "When the sirens sound, we have to go into the ocean and go under water".

 

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We are safe - sorry for my drama queen moment yesterday ? 

The situation in Victoria is frightening. There are 4000 people trapped in a beach right now, with fire surrounding them. Firefighters are currently telling them to get into the water. 
Tgese pictures are not photoshopped and were both taken during the daytime. The sky is alternating between black and red. Sirens are blaring. I’m in tears for them. 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/homes-and-lives-threatened-in-victoria-as-bushfires-claim-volunteer-nsw-firefighter/live-coverage/eccdbf36e90795da92052636148934be
 

 

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To make things worse, tonight there will be fireworks going off everywhere for NYE. It could be catastrophic. 

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Three people unaccounted for in Cobargo. Daniel Andrews (Vic Premier) has requested ADF help to get people out by water. Why the hell there were still 4000 people there - I guess as a locality population plus a few foolhardy/ignorant tourists it makes sense. My brother left Lakes Entrance yesterday, and the entire route they went along is now under fire threat.

Our local fires are still going but contained. And weirdly it's not hot and the wind is blowing the smoke away so it's all... normal. But not. I did think about running up towards where the fires are this morning, but I'm not stupid or voyeuristic enough to do that. Stay safe everyone.

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24 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

Three people unaccounted for in Cobargo. Daniel Andrews (Vic Premier) has requested ADF help to get people out by water. Why the hell there were still 4000 people there - I guess as a locality population plus a few foolhardy/ignorant tourists it makes sense. My brother left Lakes Entrance yesterday, and the entire route they went along is now under fire threat.

With the link that @adidas provided there is a statement:

Spoiler

Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp has told reporters there was no evacuation order for Mallacoota — where 4000 people are trapped at the beach.

Other towns in Gippsland were evacuated on Sunday and Monday, but mr Crisp said there were fires to Mallacoota's west and north west, making it unsafe for residents and tourists to leave.

I would guess that it was probably deemed safer by whoever at an earlier date for them to stay put.

The South Coast of NSW isn't looking much better than Gippsland either.  You could get away from the coast yesterday morning.  Today I expect all the roads are blocked (at a minimum you would be foolhardy to attempt to travel anywhere other than the larger towns not surrounded by bush on the coast that they were saying to go to on the road this morning).

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1 hour ago, adidas said:

We are safe - sorry for my drama queen moment yesterday ? 

......

To make things worse, tonight there will be fireworks going off everywhere for NYE. It could be catastrophic. 

You were perfectly entitled to a drama queen moment. These bushfires are super terrifying. My mother lives in very country SA, and I'm in the Adelaide Hills. We both keep a close eye on what goes on because as we've seen, it doesn't take much to become under threat in these conditions. As long as you and your loved ones are safe......

I saw a couple of tweets that said Esso had sent a couple of vessels to help out evacuating people from the water along the coast. Haven't been able to find any proper confirmation of this. 

Personally, I'm torn about the fireworks thing. I can't decide whether they should be cancelled or not. I'm leaning towards that they should be because seriously, fireworks when so much of Australia is burning - not a good look.

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The Sydney fireworks are continuing at least in part due to the economic impact if they didn't go ahead.  It apparently brings in about 32 million to the Sydney economy for one night (the tourist dollar like everywhere is down this year).  Vivid adds I think it was 132 million for the couple of weeks it's on (they stated the amount on the radio earlier today and I can't quite remember the vivid amount).  One of my friends thinks that the fireworks would always go ahead due to the TV broadcast licences (though I presume they would have had an appropriate fire risk assessment done).

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Those photos are terrifying!  I hope that any fireworks do not start any new fires, and that the New Year brings some relief.  My heart breaks for Australia and Australians.  

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In the past 24 hours four people have died. Four are missing. Another 200 homes have been lost. Towns have been wiped off the map. Conditions are forecast to deteriorate. 
The graphic shows yesterday’s statistics, so the last 24 hours have not been added. I’m praying that 2020 brings change. We can’t keep going like this :( 

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Overview of the current situation.

Spoiler

Nine people are confirmed dead, with four still missing, and more than 200 properties have been lost since Christmas Day in Australia’s catastrophic bushfires.

Smoke still hung thick over the south-east of the country on Wednesday evening, even as weather conditions offered a reprieve to take stock of the destruction.

On Wednesday afternoon, authorities in New South Wales and Victoria said another five people were confirmed dead, and another man presumed dead. They warned the death toll was likely to continue to rise.

At Malua Bay, on the NSW south coast, survivors spoke of how 1,000 people spent the night on the beach in a bid to seek shelter from the flames. “Everyone was on the beach, just covered in ash and smoke,” Al Baxter, the former Wallaby, told Guardian Australia. “There was a strange calmness. People were as close to the water’s edge as they could [be]. People were literally just lying on the beach trying to keep out of the smoke and ash.

In Victoria, Mick Roberts from Buchan in the East Gippsland region had been unaccounted for since Monday. He was found dead in his home on Wednesday.

“He’s not missing any more ... sorry but his body has been found in his house,” Roberts’s niece Leah Parsons said on social media. “Very sad day for us to (start) the year but we’re a bloody tight family and we will never forget our mate and my beautiful Uncle Mick,” she wrote.

In NSW, police have now confirmed deaths at Lake Conjola, Yatte Yattah, Sussex Inlet and Coolagolite. Authorities been unable to reach a property at Belowra in NSW where a 72-year-old man is presumed dead.

As relatively calm conditions set in on Wednesday, the sheer scale of the fire emergency was laid bare. People returned to find their homes damaged or destroyed. Thick smoke was visible more than 2,000km away, on the south island of New Zealand.

Authorities confirmed 176 homes have been lost on the NSW south coast; 89 in Conjola Park, 40 at Malua Bay and 15 in Rosedale. Another 50 properties have been destroyed in Victoria since Sunday. It is expected the final figures may be much higher.

The small inland communities of Cobargo, Quaama and Mogo in NSW were severely affected by the fires.

While most of the destruction occurred on Tuesday, the ferocity of the fires meant many people were unable to find out basic information until New Year’s Day. Electricity and communications lines were cut for extended periods in many areas. Roads in and out of towns remain closed.

The disaster has brought out stories of community and efforts to battle on in the face of unprecedented adversity in Victoria and NSW. In Bairnsdale, donations flooded in for those who had lost everything, who even then were reluctant to accept help.

“We had a couple with three kids here, and he [the father] started crying,” said helper Wendy McPhan. “I said, ‘here’s a $300 voucher for Woolies,’ and he said ‘no, I can’t take that, there’s people worse off.’

“I said: ‘Mate, you have lost everything. You have lost your house. There is no one worse off.’”

Many people are now concerned they might not be able to escape affected areas for days; a fear compounded by forecasts that the calm weather on Wednesday is but a brief reprieve.

Forecasters predict very hot and windy conditions for South Australia on Friday and dangerous bushfire conditions for eastern Victoria and New South Wales on Saturday, with temperatures again set to reach into the mid-40s.

We are assuming that on Saturday weather conditions will be at least as bad as what they were yesterday,” the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said. “That is something all of us have to brace ourselves for.”

The likelihood of extreme conditions returning has added to the urgency to assist people who remain hemmed in by closed roads and uncontrolled firegrounds.

The Australian Defence Force has been deployed to attempt to evacuate residents from isolated communities by air or sea, and drop off supplies. A ship with supplies for two weeks – 1.6 tonnes of water, food, and 30,000 litres of fuel – has already left Melbourne.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, on a visit to Bairnsdale on Wednesday, said: “I don’t know that we’ve ever done this before … we’ve got choppers taking 90 firefighters out of the Mallacoota area, they can’t be removed any other way – we’re essentially doing a shift change by the air.”

The three major fires in Victoria’s East Gippsland region now cover about 500,000 hectares and have “essentially combined into one”, state emergency services commissioner Andrew Crisp said. A 100,000ha fire at Corryong, on the northern side of the Great Dividing Range, and another fire of a similar size in NSW, are also at risk of combining.

Crisp said it would not be possible to put out those fires before the weather worsened. “It was nature which started the fires and it will be nature that stops these fires,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon two fires burning on Kangaroo Island in South Australia merged, and firefighters have warned it could burn for weeks. Forecast northerly winds could push the fire towards the Flinders Chase national park.

Since the start of July, 15 people have been killed by the bushfires and more than 1,000 homes lost.

Firefighter Sam McPaul, 28, died when his fire truck was overturned by extreme winds east of Albury on Monday.

Father and son, Robert and Patrick Salway, were found dead inside their house in Cobargo on Tuesday.

The nature and scale of this bushfire season in Australia is unprecedented. Scientists have cited the lack of moisture in the landscape – following years of drought – as a key reason the fires have been so severe. Intense heat, dry conditions and strong winds have created conditions where the fire risk is considered extreme or catastrophic.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, at a reception for the Australian and New Zealand cricket sides at Kirribilli House, acknowledged the fires were “a time of great challenge for Australia”. Morrison reiterated comments from a New Year comment piece that focused on the resilience of communities and deflected debate about the underlying cause of the fires.

“Whether they’re started by lightning storms or whatever the cause may be, our firefighters and all of those who have come behind them to support them, whether they’re volunteering in the front line or behind the scenes in a great volunteer effort, it is something that will happen against the backdrop of this Test match.

“But at the same time, Australians will be gathering, whether it’s at the SCG [Sydney cricket ground] or around television sets all around the country, and they’ll be inspired by the great feats of our cricketers from both sides of the Tasman and I think they’ll be encouraged by the spirit shown by Australians and the way that people have gone about remembering the terrible things that other Australians are dealing with at the moment.”

Honestly that last bit - get a new scriptwriter, that was freaking cringeworthy.

Also, for the love of God, Come Up With A Plan. The time to do nothing passed a long time ago.

The air in Canberra is terrible tonight from all the bushfire smoke. I hope Morrison, and all the other MPs are there with their families. It might help focus their minds a bit.

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On NYE I went to a friend’s house on the lake. The closest fireworks had been cancelled, but when I arrived at 9pm I was surprised to see everyone looking across the lake to a display on the other side. Someone commented that that suburb had a lot of bushland around and it was surprising they’d gotten the RFS exemption to continue the fireworks display. At about 9.05, the wind went crazy, coming from all directions and very strong. The fireworks were still going, and I mentioned how ominous that was. At 2am, I glanced at the RFS app on my phone and saw there was a grass fire listed in that suburb that had been added just hours earlier, showed it to my friend and wondered aloud if it was caused by the fireworks but surely the RFS wouldn’t have granted the exemption if they didn’t have good plans in place. That fire is still burning, now 148ha, and I still don’t know how it was started.

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We did burn offs and it made no difference.

Spoiler

I have been a member of the Wytaliba community near Glen Innes for 40 years. 

We lost two of our community members in last Friday's bushfires, and the father of my great grandson is in Royal North Shore Hospital being treated for severe burns while trying to save his house and his deceased neighbour. 

Nearly 50 per cent of our able adults are members of the Wytaliba RFS, a figure envied by many other brigades. Over those 40 years on our 3500-acre property, we have had more than a dozen out-of-control bushfires that were successfully controlled, the majority in recent years. 

Over the last three years, in co-operation with NSW Forestry, National Parks and the RFS, we have had very extensive controlled burning in the state forest and national park on our perimeter.

On September 14, after an outbreak of fires across the Northern Tablelands, high winds caused embers to spot more than 10 kilometres onto the the centre of Wytaliba. 

After an initial emergency the fire weather abated, but over the next week the fire spread across much of the property. 

In a large operation more than 20 RFS trucks, more than 100 fire fighters, bulldozers and waterbombers were successfully deployed to help defend our homes. All were saved. Much of Wytaliba was blacked out.

Carol (Glen Innes mayor with 20 year RFS service medal) and I have a large cleared area around our double brick house. 

That September fire burned to our perimeter. This was just two months ago. 

Everything that should be done, was done and lots more.

The fire that came last Friday was of another order of magnitude altogether. A crown fire roaring in from the west on a hot afternoon with an 80km per hour wind, it wasn't on the ground, it was a firestorm in the air, raining fire. 

There was no fuel on the ground, it was already burned.

The heat ahead of the fire front ignited nearly everything in its path. 

Before he saw any flame my neighbor's car exploded. They just escaped with their lives...see live footage on Monday's ABC 7.30. 

Our house was severely damaged but not destroyed. We weren't home. Others were not so lucky. 

Wytaliba has lost two lives and more than half our homes, our school, our bridge our wildlife and 40 years of work to build a community. What was our paradise is now ash. 

Thanks to the heroics of Wytaliba RFS and residents, and the Reddestone RFS who incredibly crossed the burning bridge to help us, some was saved.

"Today's not the day to talk about climate change".....No, yesterday was the day, or the day before, or the month before, or the year before,....but it didn't get a mention. 

Now we have the reality and the mention it gets is, "don't talk about it now". 

So, the politicians (and the media) turn the talk to hazard reduction burns, or the lack of them, as something else to blame on the inner-city raving lunatics. 

We had a bushfire two months ago that burned most of our property. It didn't matter. It burned again. 

This is climate changed. We're in the worst drought recorded. A million hectares of bush has burned. Barnaby says it's Green voters and the sun's magnetic field. 

Pray for rain, pray harder for leadership.

I agree. I can remember back to Fraser (just) and this is the absolute worst leadership in an emergency I have ever seen. Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Turnbull, Abbott - I disagree with at least half of them politically, and at least two were/are terrible managers of people - but they all put their Big Kid Pants on and went and talked to people in the field, even when they knew that people were angry and upset and quite probably didn't vote for their party in the first place. They made decisions and didn't try to pass the buck to states, they were seen to be acting. They sure as hell didn't utter platitudes about the fucking cricket and how bonding it is for us as Australians, ffs. This utter vacuum of leadership is terrifying, not least because it opens the door for Dutton, who is scary as hell politically speaking. 

A friend just posted that his brother is evacuating from one of the NSW coastal towns ahead of the projected extreme weather. A drive that normally would take them 90 minutes has taken 7 hours, and the roads are now closed again so they'll sleep in their car tonight and hope they can get clear tomorrow. And this is the case for thousands of people. 

I don't know what has to happen for our government to take in that this is not normal. This is not business as usual. This is worse than 1983. This is worse than 2009. This is different to everything we've had before.

I really want to hope that this is a wake up call for those voters who believed the scare tactics, and who can now see how utterly little they matter to this government. 

Edit: OK caught up with the news and ScoMo visited one of the affected towns and was promptly abused. So at least he's made some sort of basic effort.

Edited by Ozlsn
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Morrison is not doing well at all. However, the Murdoch Press is still firmly in favour of the Libs (and him), and they are still getting positive coverage. I hope people's memories aren't short.

I think you're right to be scared though, it's easy to imagine the Libs lurching even further to the right and selecting Dutton. I agree that he is even more horrible than Morrison. It's too much to hope that in a time of crisis they'd select someone who wasn't just another cookie-cutter white Anglo-Saxon male in a suit.

Have you seen this clip (link below) of Morrison turning tail and running away in the face of abuse? It made me very happy.

Scott Morrison in Cobargo

I can't imagine how scared the people in the fire affected areas are. The queues in the petrol stations and along the main roads are incredible. I only hope everyone stays safe. 

Just as an aside, can you imagine the media and political shitstorm if Julia Gillard had behaved like this?

Edited by Katzchen24
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What exactly are people hoping for from ScoMo? I’m not a huge fan at all, but some of the crap being thrown is unjustified. I get it, he is our leader, but shouting personal attacks at him isn’t going to fix the problems.
 

Cobargo is an absolute tragedy but the woman shouting at ScoMo about why they only have four fire trucks and have been neglected because they are poor is all over the news. Cobargo has a population of around 750 people. Four trucks is significantly more resources per capita than most places. And sadly, even if they had twenty trucks it probably wouldn’t have been enough.

Also, all of the fire services are governed and funded at state level. The federal government has thrown in at least $21 million to date in NSW alone and the military has been seconded to help.

I understand that people are frustrated and angry and sad but as everyone is pointing out, this is unprecedented and unpredictable. There is no easy, quick or simple fix and emotions are high. It’s horrific. 

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10 hours ago, Katzchen24 said:

Just as an aside, can you imagine the media and political shitstorm if Julia Gillard had behaved like this?

Oh I know right? Look at how Christine Nixon was lambasted by the press for having the temerity to go to a dinner appointment the night of February 7th 2009 when her subordinates were at the emergency centre. How dare she not be there personally! Meanwhile the same bloody press are all "oh but ScoMo needs holidays too", "it's not like he's on the ground doing the work so it's OK that he's not at his office either", "he left someone in charge". The double standard is sickening. 

And now I'm getting memes blaming the fires on lack of backburning and "greenies". You know I am getting a bit sick of some people on the one hand requesting aid because "these are not normal farming conditions" and on the other sharing memes explicitly saying "it's greenies not climate change". If it's not normal farming conditions then wtf is it other than climate change? If it's not climate change then you are obviously unsuited to farming and should not be getting aid to help prop up your obviously incompetent management. Pick one.

10 hours ago, Katzchen24 said:

I hope people's memories aren't short

The fires aren't even close to being out yet and it's all being blamed on the left (and, interestingly, the ABC.) Yeah that's a great idea - let's defund the ABC further so Murdoch can fill in the gap. I'm sure he'll cover the emergency broadcasting in rural and remote areas too.

I sincerely hope things will change but even if Rupert carks it tomorrow I can't see it.  As for diversity in the LNP - or the ALP come to that - given the response to Gillard I can't see that changing easily.

Meanwhile the secondary deaths from bushfire smoke have started. 

 

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11 minutes ago, Blahblah said:

What exactly are people hoping for from ScoMo

For me personally an articulated national plan would be a good start. Setting up a coordinated response together with the states so that there isn't duplication between charities and to allow better fund management.

As a longer term response acknowledging that climate change is a thing and actually coming up with something to replace the ETS that will help us reach our targets. Start looking at a national plan to respond to the changes that are occurring and how to manage things like this.

Refunding the CSIRO so we have the data to base decisions on. 

Basically stop pretending that if we ignore it it'll all go away and everyone will be happy. 

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@Ozlsn agree - in the medium to long term. Here’s hoping for a bipartisan approach, not a political point scoring exercise. If there was ever a time for LNP and ALP & the various independents to put aside party differences and just look after all Australians, this is it. 

In the immediacy of the moment though it’s unfortunately just respond & act & nobody has answers for everything.

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2 hours ago, Blahblah said:

What exactly are people hoping for from ScoMo? I’m not a huge fan at all, but some of the crap being thrown is unjustified. I get it, he is our leader, but shouting personal attacks at him isn’t going to fix the problems

My biggest issue with ScoMo is that he’s dug his heels in and insisted on NOT doing things, far too many times. Fires started burning in August and in November firefighters were begging for help, but the news about the defence force assistance came TWO DAYS AGO. This time last week, Scotty was still saying there’d be no compensation for volunteer firefighters taking leave from their jobs, because “they want to be there”. No, I’m sure they WANT to be sipping cocktails in Hawaii, but what choice do they have when their country is on fire and their friends and families are at risk? ScoMo’s changed his tune NOW, but that’s the thing - every step of the way, everything he’s done has been as late as possible. As far as I know, volunteer firefighting still doesn’t count as adequate use of time for Newstart payments so anyone who stops job hunting for a month to battle this inferno, can have their payments suspended.

Also, I want him to acknowledge that climate change is real, it caused this unprecedented fire season, and we have to act to change it.

But no. Scotty from marketing thinks it’s more important that we have some cricketers to cheer for.

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2 hours ago, Blahblah said:

Also, all of the fire services are governed and funded at state level. The federal government has thrown in at least $21 million to date in NSW alone and the military has been seconded to help.

Also, $21mil is about 2/3 of what the Sydney NYE celebrations cost to put on. It’s a pretty pisspoor amount in the context of the costs and devastation. And in a somewhat related comment about the fireworks, I understand (to an extent) why they went ahead, but I must say my first thought when I heard they would be “using the event” to get people to donate to the Red Cross was “that’d be right, shift responsibility on to the public, fund national problems with charity”. It’s like how Woolworths asks if you’d like to donate $2 to buy a bale, as if Woolworths wasn’t a multi-billion dollar corporation who has been screwing over farmers for decades and could donate half their annual profit to buy a bale but certainly won’t take on the sacrifice themselves, they’ll just ask for it from customers. The government is doing the same thing.

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 @Smee if they cancelled the fireworks there wasn’t going to be a refund. That money was already spent well in advance (by NSW government, not federal) and also the money coming in from tourist revenue is relied on by the businesses in and around Sydney. Cancelling the fireworks was not going to divert money to the fire relief funds. 
Looking on the positive side, by giving an opportunity for people to donate directly to Red Cross at the event, they tapped into a huge number of people who may have wanted to donate but didn’t know how, or who were able to chip in a few dollars in cash but didn’t want to donate online. 

I wholeheartedly agree though about multinationals asking for donations while they sit on billions of dollars of profits. 

As for Nick Krygios “generously” donating $200 per ace, that’s lovely but it’s less than pocket change for him. At least he’s trying - every little bit counts I guess. Reports are that Sam Stosur has pledged $200 per serve.

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Oh, I know cancelling the fireworks would have meant nothing in terms of money, I was just pointing out that we spend that kind of money on the event and the government wants patting on the back for giving $21mil.

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45 minutes ago, Smee said:

As far as I know, volunteer firefighting still doesn’t count as adequate use of time for Newstart payments so anyone who stops job hunting for a month to battle this inferno, can have their payments suspended.

There is now an exemption for firefighters actively fighting fires but volunteering still doesn't count as an approved activity for mutual onligation purposes. And (to quote a friend) it's always so much fun dealing with Centrelink and it's not like they ever do things like cut off benefits automatically even when they have proof or turn around, change the rules and demand repayment several years later.

22 minutes ago, Blahblah said:

Reports are that Sam Stosur has pledged $200 per serve.

If that is true go Stosur for two reasons - the cash and also trolling Kyrgios a bit. To give him credit, he did put his hand up, and if it inspires others, great.

2 hours ago, Blahblah said:

In the immediacy of the moment though it’s unfortunately just respond & act & nobody has answers for everything.

Well yes, but the federal government really hasn't been seen to be responding and acting. I could live without ScoMo doing extremely awkward photo ops if it were apparent that his government were organising things as previous governments have done. There are payments that could have been released without waiting for states. Saying there is a national emergency plan without showing any evidence of that plan either in action or actually being in existence is basically more hot air we don't need.

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Anything that helps raise funds or equipment is a good thing. I think the thing that got me about ScoMo's appearances has been the lack of compassion. I can't imagine how those people are suffering but how did he think people who've just lost everything are going to react? I don't feel that his position entitles him to respect, but he certainly shouldn't be forcing handshakes on people who obviously don't want them. 

These bushfires may have been inevitable in some form or other (in that it's summer in Australia), but if ScoMo was the first representative of governments (state and federal) that have systematically downgraded support services, reduced funding for prevention programmes and generally ignored infrastructure needs, then he's got to expect anger. He can show leadership by understanding their anger and trying to do something to help. 

For example, he could announce exemptions for Centrelink recipients who are serving with CFS units, particularly Newstart claimants who have extensive JobSearch requirements - imagine losing your payment while your world is burning down around you because you weren't able to report.

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5 hours ago, Blahblah said:

Also, all of the fire services are governed and funded at state level. The federal government has thrown in at least $21 million to date in NSW alone and the military has been seconded to help.

The fire services are funded at a state level, however a significant portion of state funding comes from the Federal Government.  The Federal Government likes to put caveats on the funding they provide as well (look at Education for examples of this, also look up Vertical Fiscal Imbalance for the term if you want to read further).

1 hour ago, Katzchen24 said:

For example, he could announce exemptions for Centrelink recipients who are serving with CFS units, particularly Newstart claimants who have extensive JobSearch requirements - imagine losing your payment while your world is burning down around you because you weren't able to report.

For that matter to report you likely need to have the internet.  Without power and or some form of phone network this would be difficult.

Also with that Scomo video, why on earth would someone pull someones hand to shake it especially as it's obvious that they don't want to.  It would be a better look to stand and talk to the person than that.

You would think with all his marketing experience that Scomo would be better at marketing himself around this situation... Then again, he did bring the 'Where the bloody hell are you' campaign...

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It was a weird weekend. Sat was hot, until the cool change came through in the south (not in the north) and by Sunday some areas had some relief with rain. The rain respite is continuing today, which at least is giving some space for fire efforts to be consolidated, roads to be cleared, food an fuel to be moved in to cut off areas, and for the losses to be assessed. Unfortunately it does make backburning harder, which is part of containment. It gets hot again later in the week, when it's likely that the ongoing fires will flare up again (sigh). The navy has been evacuating people from Mallacoota.

ScoMo also deployed 3000 army reserve troops, which is a good step - not as sure about the twitter release of a video about the announcement which had a jingle and apparently a now removed donation link to the Liberal Party. (I am honestly starting to wonder if ScoMo's publicists hate him and want to get him out - between that and the "I stand with Scotty" twitter frame it's either that or they are kind of tone deaf. Or incompetent, that would also work.) An ADF association promptly criticised the ad as using the ADF for political purposes, which ScoMo's office is denying - the ADF is supposed to be apolitical and the association felt that they had crossed that line.

The scale of these fires is still unbelievable and terrifying. There are currently over 130 fires going in NSW, of which 50 are still uncontained. We are all used to the air smelling like smoke and looking hazy - even through the drizzle today the smell is strong. 

It just feels surreal at the moment - I'm wearing a fleece, it's over 24oC (75.2oF) lower than on Friday and the fires are burning still.

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