GREENIES TO BLAME TO VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE DEATHS

Miranda Devine

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html

t wasn't climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn't arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.

So many people need not have died so horribly. The warnings have been there for a decade. If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.

Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of "prescribed burning". Also known as "hazard reduction", it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.

In July 2007 Scott Gentle, the Victorian manager of Timber Communities Australia, who lives in Healesville where two fires were still burning yesterday, gave testimony to a Victorian parliamentary bushfire inquiry so prescient it sends a chill down your spine.

"Living in an area like Healesville, whether because of dumb luck or whatever, we have not experienced a fire … since … about 1963. God help us if we ever do, because it will make Ash Wednesday look like a picnic." God help him, he was right.

Gentle complained of obstruction from green local government authorities of any type of fire mitigation strategies. He told of green interference at Kinglake - at the epicentre of Saturday's disaster, where at least 147 people died - during a smaller fire there in 2007.

"The contractors were out working on the fire lines. They put in containment lines and cleared off some of the fire trails. Two weeks later that fire broke out, but unfortunately those trails had been blocked up again [by greens] to turn it back to its natural state … Instances like that are just too numerous to mention. Governments … have been in too much of a rush to appease green idealism … This thing about locking up forests is just not working

.The Kinglake area was a nature-loving community of tree-changers, organic farmers and artists to the north of Melbourne. A council committed to reducing carbon emissions dominates the Nillumbik shire, a so-called "green wedge" area, where restrictions on removing vegetation around houses reportedly added to the dangers. In nearby St Andrews, where more than 20 people are believed to have died, surviving residents have spoken angrily of "greenies" who prevented them from cutting back trees near their property, including in one case, a tea tree that went "whoomp". Dr Phil Cheney, the former head of the CSIRO's bushfire research unit and one of the pioneers of prescribed burning, said yesterday if the fire-ravaged Victorian areas had been hazard-reduced, the flames would not have been as intense.

Kinglake and Maryville, now crime scenes, are built among tall forests of messmate stringy bark trees which pose a special fire hazard, with peeling bark creating firebrands that carry fire five kilometres out. "The only way to reduce the flammability of the bark is by prescribed burning" every five to seven years, Cheney said. He estimates between 35 and 50 tonnes a hectare of dry fuel were waiting to be gobbled up by Saturday's inferno.

Fuel loads above about eight tonnes a hectare are considered a fire hazard. A federal parliamentary inquiry into bushfires in 2003 heard that a fourfold increase in ground fuel leads to a 13-fold increase in the heat generated by a fire.

Things are no better in NSW, although we don't quite have Victoria's perfect storm of winds and forest types. Near Dubbo two years ago, as a bushfire raged through the Goonoo Community Conservation Area, volunteer firefighters bulldozing a control line were obstructed by National Parks and Wildlife Service employees who had driven from Sydney to stop vegetation being damaged.

The poor management of national parks and state forests in Victoria is highlighted by the interactive fire map on the website of the Department of Sustainability and Environment. Yesterday it showed that, of 148 fires started since mid-January, 120 started in state forests, national parks, or other public land, and just 21 on private property.

Only seven months ago, the Victorian Parliament's Environment and Natural Resources Committee tabled its report into the impact of public land management on bushfires, with five recommendations to enhance prescribed burning. This included tripling the amount of land to be hazard-reduced from 130,000 to 385,000 hectares a year. There has been little but lip service from the Government in response. Teary politicians might pepper their talking points with opportunistic intimations of "climate change" and "unprecedented" weather, but they are only diverting the blame. With yes-minister fudging and craven inclusion of green lobbyists in decision-making, they have greatly exacerbated this tragedy.

Well if Divine says it, it must be true.
Who is this Green beast? in which state do they hold government? oh thats right, its just more s hit from the regresive rightards who hate not being in power.
Could you post Mz Divines credentials for making such outlandish claims?

Grendal I think there is a strong element of truth to what she says, but when when she also says "It wasn't the arsonists", that's like taking credibility and throttling it barehanded in a public place.

[ :D

I've heard similar claims before, but they tend to be a bit short on evidence. I suspect the Greens (the party) once had a policy of encouraging the growth of trees in Northern NSW that do not encourage fires in the same way eucalypts do, to 'transform' it into wet, damp forest that doesn't burn. Last time I checked I couldn't see anything about it. I think most Australians do understand the basic fire management principles.

Yes FD. And like you has said before in another related topic. You pick where you want to live and there are tradeoffs no matter where that is. I don't wish to downplay the hurt in anyway, but living in the bush in Australia means living with the annual threat of bush fires. Proper management will not eliminate the danger but can reduce it.

There is nothing quite like have native animals having folige access right up to your doorstep or verandah, but so does fire.

Even though this attack, is largely ideologically inspired, the fact remains that a strong green lobby has overseen an unquestioning acceptance of unproven environmental principles, inspired by emotive, rather than scientific, or practical attitudes, to land management in bushfire prone areas.

To hypothesise just how people would have fared if other policies were in place, is pure guesswork, and the whole question of habitation, and land management in bushfire prone areas, will come under close scrutiny in the Victorian Royal Commission to be convened to examine the causes, and effects of these fires.

I think that the correct thing to do at this point, is to not pre-empt the findings, in an attempt to make political points.
It is far too important,an issue, and far too painful a subject for those who have lost so much, to allow anything less than allowing the Commission to fully evaluate all the evidence, before making pronouncements intended to blame and shame.

Quote:

the fact remains that a strong green lobby has overseen an unquestioning acceptance of unproven environmental principles, inspired by emotive, rather than scientific, or practical attitudes, to land management in bushfire prone areas

Can you back this 'fact' up? It seems more like an old bogeyman.


Quote:

To hypothesise just how people would have fared if other policies were in place, is pure guesswork, and the whole question of habitation, and land management in bushfire prone areas, will come under close scrutiny in the Victorian Royal Commission to be convened to examine the causes, and effects of these fires.

The question of habitation will not come up. It is perfectly safe to live there if you take appropriate precautions. What will come up is whether people should stay there when a fire passes through, and whether the government should advise them to stay there.

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GREENIES TO BLAME TO VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE DEATHS

Sheikh Haron (?) takes full responsibility for it because Australians had to be punished for endorsing the execution of the three Bali bombers and Pastor Danny Nalliah says it's retribution for women having abortions - so now we're supposed to believe the Greens are responsible?

It's a bit lame blaming others for the poor management of the State Government who disregarded the ENRC report and all of its recommendations.

I agree with mozzaok evaluation in general but want to point out that I personally know some hippies from 60s who still live in dense forests that burn every few years but those old hippies are still alive because they don't rely on government regulations but on themselves. Houses made of mud bricks are build on top of underground cellar and it takes less then one minute to get whole family in and up to one or two weeks to seat there drinking home brew and eating home produce foods. The only downsize of it is the smell of that horrible weed that they have bad habit to smoke. Got pictures of it before and after bushfire somewhere.

Quote:

Quote: the fact remains that a strong green lobby has overseen an unquestioning acceptance of unproven environmental principles, inspired by emotive, rather than scientific, or practical attitudes, to land management in bushfire prone areas Can you back this 'fact' up? It seems more like an old bogeyman.

No I can't FD.
Basically it is a mixture of observation, and anecdotal evidence, which led me to make that statement.
If we were to examine just how many councils, in these areas, restricted fuel reduction practices, because of advice from "green" groups, I expect there would be hard evidence there to back my claims, but I do not have that information at hand.
So you can change my statement from, "the fact remains", to, "my observations lead me to believe", if you think it conveys the point more appropriately.


Quote:

Quote: To hypothesise just how people would have fared if other policies were in place, is pure guesswork, and the whole question of habitation, and land management in bushfire prone areas, will come under close scrutiny in the Victorian Royal Commission to be convened to examine the causes, and effects of these fires. The question of habitation will not come up. It is perfectly safe to live there if you take appropriate precautions. What will come up is whether people should stay there when a fire passes through, and whether the government should advise them to stay there.

Well, you are totally wrong again FD.
I have already told the story here, of my experiences of the Dandenong Ranges fire of 1997, where three people died, fifty metres from my Mum's back door, while seeking shelter in their semi underground, solid brick garage.
I did not go into much detail, but the home they were in was in a street called, Seabreeze Ave, and it was the last street of houses before the forest.
It had not always been so, prior to 1969, there were more streets behind it, extending further down the hill.
In 1969, there were bad fires in the area, and nearly all the houses in that downhill area, were burnt down.
Because of the topography of the area, being a curving downhill slope, that creates a funnel effect when any fire come through, the council changed the zoning of the area, away from residential, and the people were not allowed to build on it any more, which was the correct decision to make.

To see you continue to make these statements about this issue, when you clearly have no experience, and very little knowledge, is not doing your credibility any favours.

So, I still contend that the issue of where people are allowed to build, specifically in relation to local fire history, and predictable fire behaviour patterns, in regard to the local topography, will be very much a part of the recommendations that we see handed down.

When it comes to human lives and the maintenance of firebreaks around housing areas, I must agree that it is necessary to do this, and I've always believed that.

Apart from that there are strong arguments in favour of firebreaks to protect natural vegetation and parklands, because if we can limit the area burnt, then we can reduce the damage done by bushfires.

Some of the attitudes of councils against felling of trees in settled areas quite frankly needs to change. I think that a lot of the damage was done more by misguided council policies than the effects of any green lobby. Most environmental professionals would probably share my attitude on this.

(By the way this board is hereby declared free of thinly disguised attacks on Muslims or any other religions. If you object to this and can get the backing of FD to restore any deleted posts, I will gladly step down as moderator. )

To deny the green politics in this is to be in denial...

I've always thought the greens tended to support burining off. It fits in well with the whole 'aboriginal custodians fo the land' thing.

I spoke to an ecologist about this yesterday and he pointed out that too much burning off can increase the risk of crown fires. You burn out the lower story and let the crown build up, but the lower story never gets enough fuel to ignite the crown. So in a hundred years time when the crown finally does go up, it is worse than ever. That is, burning off too often can make crown fires rarer but more intense. I think it's called the 'Yellowstone effect' after the park in California.

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.

Grendel wrote on Feb 14^th, 2009 at 9:01pm:

To deny the green politics in this is to be in denial...

You can lie all you like but at least try and put up some proof, come on, facts, got any?
Please explain where the Greens are in power, as far as I know all states bar WA are under Labor control, where are the Greens in power to make any of these decisions?

The concern is that there will be a knee jerk reaction to this crisis. The management of forest areas is a complex issue. As FD said, if you have too much burning off, we risk extremely intense crown fires. That's just one aspect of it. Another aspect is that a fire break only remains a firebreak as long as it is maintained properly.

This bushfire action plan on the Wilderness Society webpage seems to address most issues:

http://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/bushfire-action-plan

Quote:

Fuel reduction burning has an important place in the fire management toolbox, and we support its place in scientifically underpinned fire management for the protection of life, property and the environment. The issue of fuel reduction burning often dominates the fire debate, as if it is the only fire management tool. But it’s important to remember that this is only one tool in fire management, and not the silver bullet that will fire proof the landscape.

I'm sorry skippy...  don't tell me such a short sentence has you confused.  Get an adult to explain what I wrote to you.

LOL MUSO....  a firebreak would need to be hundreds of metres wide to be effective in the Australian bush and considering green policies have led to the bush being locked up and untouched for a decade at a time in some areas the amount of fuel on the ground can result in only one thing...  a megafire.  Oh and BTW canopy fires start on the ground.

As for other aspects of the implementation of green policy fire trails are almost non-existent in some National Parks in fact there was a well known case a few years ago, where the greens had action taken against the creation of a firetrail and it had to be returned to "pristine" bush.  The lack of access is also a problem in firefighting. The list goes on and on  and on.

So you have no proof, thanks, just wanted to establish you were full of s hit.

I'm sorry skippy...  what don't you understand about get someone to explain it to you?

maybe if you read my reply to muso things might light up in your brain eh.

Thanks for that boofy, I new you didn't have proof of your slander I just wanted it on record that you make up what you dont know.

DWMT :D

Oh ok one last try for the deluded and demented Skippy...  
1. i mentioned green politics...  not a party.
2. even if I had mentioned a party...  it is obvious that Labor more than any other party panders to them for preferences.
3. this involves policy compromises.
4. in case it escaped your tiny little mind, there was a huge amount of policy amendments just gone through re the economic stimulus bills...  the Greens got something out of it, the independents got something out of it.  Did you miss that?  Don't you know how politics works?
5. Bob Carr locked up heaps of NSW by creating National Parks in order to keep the Greens happy and on side. Oh dear all just illsuions of course...  never really happened.

Now DWMT anymore.

Grendel wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 11:24am:

DWMT :D

No, thats what we should be saying to you, you come on here post lies that you know are lies and then say dwmt, you are such a little sheeple hanging onto any rightard retard veiw that you find, but I am here to keep you honest, and aint that a big job, when you cant even back up your lies with half truths let alone facts.

ROTFLMAO

You and Lestat should get together...

let me know when the penny finally drops eh.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Still no facts boofy?
You've had three days to find one, just one ,but then when you are a sheeple lier facts dont come into it do they boof?

All I've presented are facts squip.
Find one what?

I've found one complete friend...  but then I found you on Cracker.

Tell me what is the difference between "green politics" and "The Greens"?

Oh dear...  you apparently don't know.

What is the difference between policy and implementation or interpretation?

Don't know that either eh.

What isn't factual about what I have written?

Ooops nothing you've presented... all that has been is friend skippy's usual sniping.  :D :D :D ::)

Grendel, don't mention lestat or anything muslim here or your posts will disappear by musolini regardless if they relate to environment or not. :(

Well if I cant get by with that one Muso's lost the plot.

Grendel wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 11:42am:

Find one what? I've found one complete friend...  but then I found you on Cracker. Tell me what is the difference between "green politics" and "The Greens"? Oh dear...  you apparently don't know. What is the difference between policy and implementation or interpretation? Don't know that either eh. What isn't factual about what I have written? Ooops nothing you've presented... all that has been is stupid skippy's usual sniping.  :D :D :D ::)

Look friend, you posted your lies aimed at the Greens party but as usual you were caught out lying, now I know most of what you post is s hit so its beond you to comprehend what is real and what is lies, if a retard rightard writes it, it must be true as far as you are concerned, but try to lift yourself above the sheeple trail you follow and open your eyes you just might learn some truth if you drag your head out of that very large cesspool you live in.
Now, you got those facts yet? last chance friend

Quote:

So, I still contend that the issue of where people are allowed to build, specifically in relation to local fire history, and predictable fire behaviour patterns, in regard to the local topography, will be very much a part of the recommendations that we see handed down.

I agree with the above - why do so many new estates end up in the path of where so many fires have previously passed through?  Maybe there should be a Royal Commission into why State governments take bribes from big developers allowing them to make a quick buck at the expense of people's lives?

The ENRC report a couple of years ago gave the reasons for bushfire mismanagement & their recommendations to the Victorian Government, which have been ignored or put into the too hard basket.  The biggest problem with backburning is getting the community to agree on whether it should be increased or not.

The ENRC recommended that maps of boundaries and burns should be made publicly available.  Backburning should have been increased from 130,000 hectares to 385,000 hectares and that a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the increased prescribed burning target in meeting ecological and bushfire suppression needs should be conducted every three years.

The report is comprehensive with its findings and recommendations.

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/bushfires/Report/Bushfires_June_08.pdf

This is a complex issue that is being reduced to the single monolithic issue of backburning.

If we want to get it right, we need to listen to the experts in the field. The Royal Commission will do just that. Politicians are rarely experts in any field except for the Olympic Sport of Backstabbing.

Ok, they'll get a few cheap shots out of this tragedy. They usually do.  

Look personal attack deleted... I never mentioned the GREENS party at all until last post. YOU made me do that.

I posted the article by miranda to start a discussion...  something you seem incapable of.  Your feral rabid responses attacking moi are testament to that,

You also seem to have forgotten all about one teir of government.  LOCAL!!!!!!!!

So here just for you and THE GREEN and the greenies...  

Quote:

"Living in an area like Healesville, whether because of dumb luck or whatever, we have not experienced a fire … since … about 1963. God help us if we ever do, because it will make Ash Wednesday look like a picnic." God help him, he was right. Gentle complained of obstruction from green local government authorities of any type of fire mitigation strategies. He told of green interference at Kinglake - at the epicentre of Saturday's disaster, where at least 147 people died - during a smaller fire there in 2007. "The contractors were out working on the fire lines. They put in containment lines and cleared off some of the fire trails. Two weeks later that fire broke out, but unfortunately those trails had been blocked up again [by greens] to turn it back to its natural state … Instances like that are just too numerous to mention. Governments … have been in too much of a rush to appease green idealism … This thing about locking up forests is just not working."

just one example of countless others...  I note Mozz and others have also identified this type of behaviour.

Go snipe Mozz...  you personal attack deleted.

Grendel - Good discussion - just cool it on the personal attacks - ok? - muso

I suggest you go back and mod all of Skippys now before I get annoyed at you for bias.

Grendel, haven't you figured out yet that muso is no more, he is transformed into dictator and as any dictator he targets only those who dare to  disagree with his ideology.

I don't think it's that Tallow - it's just some people just seem more abusive than others even if the insults are fairly similar. For some reason when Skippy reprimands Grendel - it doesn't seem as bad as when Grendel sneers at someone.  :D

mantra wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 1:11pm:

I don't think it's that Tallow - it's just some people just seem more abusive than others even if the insults are fairly similar. For some reason when Skippy reprimands Grendel - it doesn't seem as bad as when Grendel sneers at someone.  :D

To an unbiased observer an abuse seems to be an abuse but it does not appear that you or musolini are unbiased.

mantra wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 1:11pm:

I don't think it's that Tallow - it's just some people just seem more abusive than others even if the insults are fairly similar. For some reason when Skippy reprimands Grendel - it doesn't seem as bad as when Grendel sneers at someone.  :D

- or it could be that I just missed them. Look guys, I've been away and I'm just catching up. Please be nice.

mantra wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 1:11pm:

I don't think it's that Tallow - it's just some people just seem more abusive than others even if the insults are fairly similar. For some reason when Skippy reprimands Grendel - it doesn't seem as bad as when Grendel sneers at someone.  :D

Thats because skippy is always  right, kind, and friendly whilst boofy is not.

Well let me get in on this personal attack stuff.

All who try and make cheap political gains from this tragedy, are scumbags, to paraphrase one of our greatest PMs.

Like Muso said, this is not a simple issue, where you can target one aspect as the sole determinant.

Now having said that, and bearing in mind my general preference for green principles, Grendel is absolutely right in his statements regarding the pandering to green lobbyists, in respect to their influencing of government bodies, over forestry management issues, but at the same time, it is grossly unfair to try and lay all the blame at their door, for the scale of this tragedy.

We just do not manage our forests well enough, be it in what types of infrastructure we allow to pass through them, or what types of access we have in them, through to maintaining fuel load limits, or even where people should be allowed to construct housing developments in them.

The Royal Commission will be a long process, and will take submissions from many interested parties, including scientists, who will provide much valuable information about the best pratices we should try and implement, to mitigate the potential for any re-occurrence of another tragedy, of this scale.

They will look at fire causes, and dwelling construction standards, as well as dwelling placement within forests, and also the much discussed topic of fuel load reduction burns.

The issue of warning systems, and availability of up to the minute fire and weather status, and predicted activity, will also be high on their agenda.

I think it is fair to say that all political parties, have to pull together on this issue, and cooperate in getting best practices adopted nationwide, rather than going down the usual path of blame and shame.

I'm looking forward to the outcomes too mozz if its done properly.

I note every time we've had an inquiry in the past only a handful of recommendations have been accepted.

Quote:

LOL MUSO....  a firebreak would need to be hundreds of metres wide to be effective in the Australian bush

Grendel they are not intended to work on their own. They are a 'containment line'. They let the firefighters in or provide a place where choppers can get the job done.


Quote:

As for other aspects of the implementation of green policy fire trails are almost non-existent in some National Parks in fact there was a well known case a few years ago, where the greens had action taken against the creation of a firetrail and it had to be returned to "pristine" bush.  The lack of access is also a problem in firefighting. The list goes on and on  and on.

Can you back this up Grendel?


Quote:

The ENRC report a couple of years ago gave the reasons for bushfire mismanagement & their recommendations to the Victorian Government, which have been ignored or put into the too hard basket.  The biggest problem with backburning is getting the community to agree on whether it should be increased or not.

You might be on to something there Mantra. I suspect it is the community in the immediate vicinity, not some 'green ring ins' that object. People just label them 'greenies', even thought they could just as easily be motivated by money (maybe they have a property on the market). They label them greenies to score cheap political points from the tragedy. Rather than addressing the real reason why backburning doesn't happen, they take advantage to make environmentalists look bad. That's why the only 'evidence' you ever see is people accusing 'greenies' of being behind it.


Quote:

I think it is fair to say that all political parties, have to pull together on this issue, and cooperate in getting best practices adopted nationwide, rather than going down the usual path of blame and shame.

It will be off the public radar by the time it is finished. Then it will end up in the too hard basket like the last one.

::)
do your own extra research since you don't believe what's already been said or what others tell you.  ::)

In other words, you make up stuff, and its up to others to chase up the facts? Should we assume this about everything you post?

[quote author=athiest link=1234402451/15#28 date=1234662814Look friend, you posted your lies aimed at the Greens party but as usual you were caught out lying, now I know most of what you post is s hit so its beond you to comprehend what is real and what is lies, if a retard rightard writes it, it must be true as far as you are concerned, but try to lift yourself above the sheeple trail you follow and open your eyes you just might learn some truth if you drag your head out of that very large cesspool you live in.
Now, you got those facts yet? last chance friend[/quote]

There is strong circumstantial evidence that Green's influence Labor policy in exchange for their preferences. Some Green's and Labor politicians have slipped up and admitted this on the public record. They have said that there are formal negotiations regarding preference deals and that Greenie causes like national parks and marine parks are on the agenda.

freediver wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 10:41pm:

In other words, you make up stuff, and its up to others to chase up the facts? Should we assume this about everything you post?

If Grendel does find references will you concede the point (I assume it's the one about Greens doing preference deals to influence policy)?

Quote:

If Grendel does find references will you concede the point (I assume it's the one about Greens doing preference deals to influence policy)?

If he finds enough evidence yes. 'References' is a vague term and he tends to come up with other people making the same unsubstantiated comments as him and pretending that is evidence. The point is not about Greens doing preference deals. Of course they do that. They are a political party. The claim I would like to see evidence for is that 'greenies' prevent sound forest management policies from being implemented.

freediver wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 7:06am:

Quote: If Grendel does find references will you concede the point (I assume it's the one about Greens doing preference deals to influence policy)? If he finds enough evidence yes. 'References' is a vague term and he tends to come up with other people making the same unsubstantiated comments as him and pretending that is evidence. The point is not about Greens doing preference deals. Of course they do that. They are a political party. The claim I would like to see evidence for is that 'greenies' prevent sound forest management policies from being implemented.

Do you concede that the nature of the evidence is likely to be circumstantial? Are you going to dismiss circumstantial evidence as 'unsubstantiated'?

The nature of the evidence presented so far is cirumstantial. It is also very second hand. I find it hard to believe there would be a strong enough 'green' movement preventing effective fire management, but not a single environmental organisation whose policies reflect this.

freediver wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 7:42am:

The nature of the evidence presented so far is cirumstantial. It is also very second hand. I find it hard to believe there would be a strong enough 'green' movement preventing effective fire management, but not a single environmental organisation whose policies reflect this.

So you are not going to accept circumstantial evidence?

Note there a moves afoot to sue the government over inaffective fire management.

pjb05 wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 6:31am:

freediver wrote on Feb 15th, 2009 at 10:41pm: In other words, you make up stuff, and its up to others to chase up the facts? Should we assume this about everything you post? If Grendel does find references will you concede the point (I assume it's the one about Greens doing preference deals to influence policy)?

Before you write bulls hit you should check your facts, tha Greens at the last election swapped preferences on a a seat by seat basis, fmd, why must I deal with such uninformed tryhards.
All small parties do deals to influence policy, dont you know that?
They do deals with which ever party will give them the most chance of winning a seat, dont you know that?
I'd also like to point out  the uninformed here like to use the word GREENS whenever refering to conservation issues, a very handy way of trying to tie in the greens political party to any conservation rullings by council, please if you dont know what you're on about, pizz off and say nothing.

Quote:

So you are not going to accept circumstantial evidence? Note there a moves afoot to sue the government over inaffective fire management.

So they should.  The government's poor management has nothing to do with the Greens.  Why don't you read the ENRC report with its findings and recommendations?  It's 2 or 3 pages, so too long to post here, but their main findings were this.

A major reason for the debate surrounding the appropriate extent of prescribed burning on public land is the level of concern within the community about its perceived environmental impacts. For example, a number of stakeholders expressed concerns that current levels and methods of prescribed burning on public land are harmful to the environment.

Conversely, other stakeholders argued that Victoria’s biodiversity is threatened by the infrequency of current fire regimes. Inadequate resource allocation, particularly of personnel, was cited by a number of stakeholders as a constraint on the level of prescribed burning. A related argument was that there has been a loss, from DSE in particular, of the knowledge required to maintain an adequate broad-scale prescribed burning program. The Committee concurs with these stakeholders and recommends a substantial increase in funding to engage skilled fire management personnel dedicated to undertaking prescribed burning activities.

Other factors include: the various practical constraints on the conduct of prescribed burning; incomplete scientific knowledge; incomplete records;and a lack of certainty regarding the most appropriate way to evaluate the prescribed burning program. In the Committee’s view, there is significant potential for ongoing progress in each of these areas to reduce the relative influence of diverging values on the prescribed burning debate.

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/bushfires/Report/Bushfires_June_08.pdf

Hey skippy...  what's the difference between green and GREENS?

;D

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22656009-5012863,00.html

Quote:

LABOR has lost its chance of securing Family First preferences after moving to stitch up a deal with the Greens. Greens leader Bob Brown yesterday said a deal to swap preferences with Labor in all states except Tasmania was close to being finalised. "We're working very hard and we're coming very close to getting a preference arrangement for a swap with the Labor Party," Senator Brown said.

Quote:

"It virtually hands the Greens the balance of power in the Senate and control of everything that happens in Australia, which is horrifying," he said. Senator Fielding said Family First was willing to do a preference deal with the major parties, but Labor walked away from negotiations because they preferred the Greens.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/29/2072639.htm


Quote:

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown says his party is moving towards a deal which would see Labor give preferences to the Greens in the Senate. However, he says it is the first time the Greens in Tasmania will not be directing preferences to either Labor or the Liberals because of both parties' support for the pulp mill and old-growth logging. Senator Abetz, the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, says voters should remember Tasmania's Labor-Green accord. "People left the state, investment collapsed, the young people lost confidence in Tasmania and they went to the mainland," he said. "If that were to happen Australia-wide people would have to leave the country and that's not the sort of future I want for Australia."

Quote:

But Senator Brown has dismissed the reference to the accord, which Senator Abetz says saw unemployment skyrocket and investment collapse, saying the Greens have alternatives.

See what I mean PJ, plenty of 'evidence', but nothing about actual fire management.


Quote:

So you are not going to accept circumstantial evidence?

This isn't a courtroom PJ. The evidence is what it is.

http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=1535


Quote:

Greens / Labor deal - cut BMW tax, increase Aussie cars tax “And the fact that Labor have signed up to this deal with the Greens demonstrates that all Mr Rudd’s rhetoric about being interested in the car industry is vacuous spin.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/nsw-greens-hitch-wagon-to-labor-with-deal-on-election-preferences/2007/03/10/1173478729140.html


Quote:

THE Greens yesterday recommended that their voters give preferences to Labor candidates in 24 marginal seats, virtually gifting the state election to Premier Morris Iemma.

Quote:

The deal is bound to cause widespread anger in Green ranks where there is massive opposition to Labor's $2 billion desalination plant and pro-developer policies.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/1995/210/10834


Quote:

New Green-Labor accord? 7 November 1995 By Ben Courtice HOBART -- Some members of the state Labor Opposition want to leave open the option of entering a new alliance with the Green Party after the next state election, due in February 1996. However, Opposition leader Michael Field insists he will make no such deal. This has revived the debate about the Green-Labor accord formed in 1989 when the Greens won five seats and Labor 13 out of a house of 35. In return for promises by Labor to save some wilderness areas, the Greens supported a harsh budget which included health and education cuts. The accord finally broke down when Labor introduced resource security legislation to ensure access to natural resources for mining and logging companies. However, the Greens had already tarnished their public image and they suffered a large drop in their vote in the 1992 elections, which were won by the Liberals. While Field has stated that Labor's policy is to govern in its own right or not at all, former state ALP president Leo Brown has said that Labor might rethink its policy towards the Greens if the electorate rejects the Liberals at the next elections. This is probably because recent polls show the Greens attracting around 16% support around the state and 22% in the south. It looks likely that they will retain their five seats, and possibly gain second seats in the electorates of Denison and Franklin.

yawn....  you'll need more time than I've got to find the itsy bitsy details fd...  I note the media article from a few years back re the access trail to electricity towers which GREENS protested against and had regreened is no longer available that and the fact that the part still denuded save fauna from the bushfire at the time.  But it was a big story at the time...  one you appear ignorant of.

If you want to see the effect of G policy look at the ACT.  Remember those fires.  I guess not.
But for more detail you'd need to look at councils with green representation on them.  I mean apart from the well known State NSW Labor gov under Carr...  If you looked at those councils minutes you'd get a record of voting and where policy and amendments come from.
Unfortunately I can't be bothered ringing round every such council just for you.  Mind you your so ignorant and biased you wouldn't believe me anyway.

Like I said do your own research.  I'm not sitting here all day to do your work for you.


Quote:

Brown was directing the Business Council, which represents Australia’s 200 biggest corporations, to the use by the Tasmanian Greens of their parliamentary “balance of power” to enter into a formal accord with the state Labor government. The accord specified that the Labor government would protect Tasmania’s forests in return for Greens support for the government’s budget. The outcome of the accord was a state budget that slashed jobs, cut back on public transport and attacked public education

.

Oh and I note you still have 2 major problems...  reading between the lines and understanding consequences.

You can hardly compare protecting forests in Tasmania from logging to restricting backburning in Victoria.

Your initial comment was right as far as there being some green influence in the communities affected in regard to ecological destruction through backburning, but no "Australian Greens" influence.  Your references above are just grasping at straws.  Of course there have been some deals made with the Greens, but there is nothing to indicate they had anything to do with backburning.

BTW - who voted for Fielding?  Answer - no-one.  He's only there through default and landed his cushy job through Liberal/National preferences.  

http://www.coagbushfireenquiry.gov.au/subs_html/david_packham.html

I'll leave it to you to guess what colour the minority groups and politics involved are.  ::)

Quote:

yawn....  you'll need more time than I've got to find the itsy bitsy details fd...

As I thought, this is just another empty headed 'they are conspiring against us' rant against the Greens and Labor. To you blocking effective forest management is an itsy bitsy detail. To everyone else, that is what this thread is about. Perhaps you should start a new thread do dump that crap.


Quote:

If you want to see the effect of G policy look at the ACT.  Remember those fires.  I guess not.

How about we start with the actual policy, before you try ascribing effects to it?


Quote:

Like I said do your own research.  I'm not sitting here all day to do your work for you.

I'm just asking you to back up your claims, instead of trying to pass the main subject of this thread off as 'itsy bitsy detail' in favour of your partisan political agenda.

Grendel you appear to be throwing the facts out the window so you can take advantage of this tragedy to score cheap political points.

Grendel wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 11:17am:

Hey skippy...  what's the difference between green and GREENS? ;D

The question wasn't addressed to me, but I'll give my two cents. Not everything espoused by the Greens is totally green. Their stance on nuclear power for example will just mean that we'll rely on coal for that bit longer.

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if some of the causal factors behind the bushfires were 'deep green' in colour. It's the old adage of people doing what they think is the right thing without thinking it through properly.

The danger is that people will throw out the baby with the bathwater. We need to have a reasoned risk-based approach to this issue - not a knee-jerk reaction.

Quote:

If you want to see the effect of G policy look at the ACT.  Remember those fires.  I guess not.

Yes - and they were discussed at length and the conclusion was that those fires were exacerbated by sheer incompetence and mismanagement by local and state governments.  It took them an hour or something before they even had fire trucks on the road - or some ridiculous length of time anyway.  Then they took the wrong roads to the wrong areas.  It was just one mistake after another.  Their communication system wasn't effective - in fact there was little communication, or it was incorrect, which created many of the problems.

lol mantra....  there was a lot more to it than just than mantra.

As for anecdotal "ignorance"


Quote:

Liam Sheahan and his wife Dale, for example, were dragged through the courts by their local Mitchell Shire Council and fined $50,000 for clearing the trees around their home in 2002. Today, the Sheahans' home is the only one standing in a 2km radius after fires swept through last week. "Labor has pandered to minority green groups to get over the line, but now we hope that what happened to us might be a catalyst for change,'' Liam said. This from someone who has dealt with the ciourts and the local authorities...  gee too bad his "ignorance" led to his house being the only one left standing. "The situation is the same from Adelaide to southern NSW."

hey muso...  I already know what the difference is...  Skippy apparently doesn't  ;D hence the question.

Gotta read everything to keep up.

Quote:

Reedy Creek is an easy hour's drive from Melbourne. Two hours further north, in Tawonga South, just over the 895m high Tawonga Gap, Allan Mull, a former farmer, former fire brigade captain, prospector, developer and now alpine activist campaigns for safer forests from his eco-friendly home surrounded by an organic garden and covered in solar panels. A founding member of the small but vocal Alpine Conservation and Access Group, he has studies and reports which show the need for regular burning to keep the alpine forests healthy. "Aborigines used to start fires on the ridge lines as they came down after feasting on bogong moths every year," Mull, a fourth generation member of a Kiewa Valley family, told me. "When the forests were commercially logged and under the control of the old Forestry Commission, the forestry workers did the same thing. "But the state government since the days of (former Labor premiers) John Cain and Joan Kirner have allowed green ideologues to take over. The forests have been locked up, the fire trails have been closed, they are full of weeds and feral animals. The state has failed in its duty of care. Our national parks and reserves are now national disasters, whether burnt or not.'' Mull also blames the city media for not listening to rural voices, saying that urban green groups are never questioned but experienced country representatives are mocked.

Of course all these experienced people don't know what they are talking about.  ::)

Just locking up national Parks is the conservation method widely used in NSW...  and Carr did a lot of it to appease the GREENS.


Quote:

There is no shortage of respected figures for the commission to call upon, such as Thorry Gunnersen, a fourth generation member of a timber dynasty with a wealth of experience to share. Gunnersen, a past president of the National Association of Forestry Industries and a former chairman of the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon, is fiercely opposed to the practice of locking up parks and downgrading the university qualifications foresters used to acquire into the general eco-degrees held by some park rangers. "The state boasts that its parks and reserves are 'protected' lands but the opposite is true," he said. "There is no funding and there is no management."

But hey...  what would we know, obviously not the truth.

re Canberra, mantra, no use cherry-picking...  the Mcleod inquiry also found...


Quote:

* That management of fuel load in parks and access to remote area was lacking.

Quote:

The Inquiry recommended there should be increased emphasis given to controlled burning as a fuel-reduction strategy.

among other things like the ones you mentioned.

and from the coroners report pt1.


Quote:

"that there be an ongoing program of back-burning and fuel-load management across the ACT, to ensure that at all times forestry and other access roads are kept clear and are accessible to emergency personnel and vehicles and to ensure that fuel loads are kept at a level that will minimise the risk of a recurrence of the firestorm"

As for the politics of the ACT, labor and the Greens have run it for quite a while and Labor and Stanhope would not be in power now, if not for the Greens.

Personally I wouldn't spit on him, let alone give him control of anything.

Another anecdote to be dismissed...


Quote:

The backlash continued yesterday, with the Yarra Ranges Shire Council accused of ignoring warnings that its environmental policies put at risk residents' lives and property. Healesville resident Valma Owen told of a two-year campaign to get the council to review its regulations on clearing bush. A letter Ms Owen sent to the council in November stated: "The council creates laws forcing those of us who live in the rural areas into a threatened state over which we have no control. "The value of human life over a tree needs to be seriously questioned." Ms Owen said that many residents believed that the council had adopted an overly "green agenda". "I love the bush, but it is about finding a balance. "Residents are now saying, 'We are going to cut our trees down and you can all go to hell'. "They won't even let us cut native grass without a $60 permit."

The dear chap. loves those cut and pastes, pity he dosn't look any further than the right whinge  weekly when he sources them.

freediver wrote on Feb 15^th, 2009 at 10:19pm:

It will be off the public radar by the time it is finished. Then it will end up in the too hard basket like the last one.

Sad, but true. I know how local government (well any government)works.

They will end up with a maze of regulations that will have little effect on the crux of the matter, which from where I stand is just a lack of coordination. (mismanagement)

Local government seems to get lost in the detail of slavishly following regulations which don't always address the main issues at hand. The average local authority response to swimming pool fencing is another prime example of this. The average inspector seems to have a 'common sense' filter installed in his sunglasses. Everything gets through bar UV-B rays and common sense.

In short, they can't see the wood for the trees.

You want me to reply to Skippys latest mindless flame muso?
You must right?  I mean you allowed it.

Grendel wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 7:59pm:

hey muso...  I already know what the difference is...  Skippy apparently doesn't  ;D hence the question. Gotta read everything to keep up.

Glass houses my friend.

Besides, everything I said is factual,
1-you love cut and pastes
2-you only post s hit fron retard press, whats your problem?, if you got around a bit more you'd find there is a whole lot of truthfull imformation out there for you to post, and you can even cut and paste it.

ok my dear chap....
muso set the rules even though hes hardly even handed at administering them.

Considering this is a text only forum...  how pray tell do you expect me to inform others of anectdotal stuff and the opinions of others who have direct experience without cutting and pasting it here?  hmmm   :D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D :o  moron!

How about YOU post some of that truth you seem to think exists outside the media.  Oh and no more green left crap unless its factual ok.

BTW I know the difference Between green and The Greens... and if you'd bother to actual read what I wrote instead of your feral sniping you might have noticed.

Grendel wrote on Feb 17^th, 2009 at 12:51pm:

ok idiot... muso set the rules even though hes hardly even handed at administering them. Considering this is a text only forum...  how pray tell do you expect me to inform others of anectdotal stuff and the opinions of others who have direct experience without cutting and pasting it here?  hmmm   :D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D :o  moron! How about YOU post some of that truth you seem to think exists outside the media.  Oh and no more green left crap unless its factual ok. BTW I know the difference Between green and The Greens... and if you'd bother to actual read what I wrote instead of your feral sniping you might have noticed.

You see boofy, you get all hot under the colar and call me names like moron and feral whilst I address you as friend, are you starting to work out why the mods are always on your back about your posts?
See if your owner might loosen that colar for you, it sounds a bit tight.

I don't mind at all as long as its a level playing field but I'll call you an idiot if you behave like one.

What else would it be but idiocy to say you cant cut and paste information????  Stupidity?  Lunacy?  

So since most of your stuff is just sniping why don't you change habits and posts something at has information for a change....  then I won't feel inclined to reply, my dear chap.

Grendel wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 8:20pm:

Quote: Reedy Creek is an easy hour's drive from Melbourne. Two hours further north, in Tawonga South, just over the 895m high Tawonga Gap, Allan Mull, a former farmer, former fire brigade captain, prospector, developer and now alpine activist campaigns for safer forests from his eco-friendly home surrounded by an organic garden and covered in solar panels. A founding member of the small but vocal Alpine Conservation and Access Group, he has studies and reports which show the need for regular burning to keep the alpine forests healthy. "Aborigines used to start fires on the ridge lines as they came down after feasting on bogong moths every year," Mull, a fourth generation member of a Kiewa Valley family, told me. "When the forests were commercially logged and under the control of the old Forestry Commission, the forestry workers did the same thing. "But the state government since the days of (former Labor premiers) John Cain and Joan Kirner have allowed green ideologues to take over. The forests have been locked up, the fire trails have been closed, they are full of weeds and feral animals. The state has failed in its duty of care. Our national parks and reserves are now national disasters, whether burnt or not.'' Mull also blames the city media for not listening to rural voices, saying that urban green groups are never questioned but experienced country representatives are mocked. Of course all these experienced people don't know what they are talking about.  ::)

Funny thing is Grendel, this 'alpine activist' is the closest thing to a 'greenie' you have come up with, and he is calling for more burning off. Not less. Every other example you gave was of council beuracracy getting in the way, and people attributing this to 'greenies' in the complete absence of real evidence, just as you have done. All the eivdence you present is evidence that people blame it on greenies without evidence. None of it is evidence that green groups are responsible.

Grendel wrote on Feb 17^th, 2009 at 1:16pm:

I don't mind at all as long as its a level playing field but I'll call you an idiot if you behave like one. What else would it be but idiocy to say you cant cut and paste information????  Stupidity?  Lunacy?   So since most of your stuff is just sniping why don't you change habits and posts something at has information for a change....  then I won't feel inclined to reply moron.

I didn't say you can't cut and paste boof, just make it relavent.
I dont snipe, I bring to your attention your bull s hit, which you dont like.
As for me posting cut and pastes, yes I am a culprit of that myself, tho mine are factual, so you ignore them.
Remember the dirty bombs in Palastine? I posted lots of stories about those and you boo hooed them, well I've since been proven to be right, but dont you let that get in the way of your little rant.

Sorry guys, but you can call what somebody says bs, but please don't use derogatory terms to insult each other or I'll be forced to change them to ever more endearing terms.  

I'm trying to keep my moderation as even and as moderate as possible. If you can't help yourselves and say something insulting, then just realise that I'm not omnipresent as I do actually work and I  have a life outside the internet. So there is just a slight possibility that I didn't notice it.  

Let me know when you get the moderation right muso.
I might be bothered posting again after that.

If you go back to the start and read his posts you will see how much is factual argument and how much is flame, abuse, sniping and just plain wrong and who starts the abuse.  Personally I'd delete most of his crap, there is no factual information presented.

You don't present much either Grendel - mostly just a bunch of people who make the same baseless claim as yourself.

Great arguments guys, well at least Beo presented arguments, the best the rest could come up with is, what makes you think that councils enforcing policies espoused by greenies, has anything to do with greenies?

Duuhhhhh!!! A wild guess maybe?

Fair dinkum, if it looks like a turd, and smells like a turd, I guess you better pick it up and taste it, just to make sure.

Quote:

the best the rest could come up with is, what makes you think that councils enforcing policies espoused by greenies

But he couldn't come up with a single example of a greenie actually espousing such a policy. All he could produce was other people making the same accusation, in the absence of evidence or fact. The closest he came was an 'alpine activist' espousing the opposite. Pretty weak argument if you ask me.

I think we need to apply Occam's razor here. On the one hand we have government commissioned studies blaming the government for not putting enough money in to get the job done etc. On the other we have a bunch of anti-greens trying to blame something on the greenies for which they have no actual evidence - despite the fact that it is something that should be on the website of environmental groups if what they are saying is true.

freediver wrote on Feb 17^th, 2009 at 10:30pm:

Quote: the best the rest could come up with is, what makes you think that councils enforcing policies espoused by greenies But he couldn't come up with a single example of a greenie actually espousing such a policy. All he could produce was other people making the same accusation, in the absence of evidence or fact. The closest he came was an 'alpine activist' espousing the opposite. Pretty weak argument if you ask me. I think we need to apply Occam's razor here. On the one hand we have government commissioned studies blaming the government for not putting enough money in to get the job done etc. On the other we have a bunch of anti-greens trying to blame something on the greenies for which they have no actual evidence - despite the fact that it is something that should be on the website of environmental groups if what they are saying is true.

Come off it FD, you already decided in advance to deny any link - you have said as much. What about the guy who was fined $50,000 for clearing bush around his house to reduce the fire hazard? His was the only one in the are to survive! You can't blame that one on the government being stingy or complacent.

PS: I recall you being in total denial about increasing the danger to anglers with you marine park policy. You would force them further out to sea or to fish off the ocean rocks. Any reasonable person would own up and say 'oh yes I didn't think of that'.    

mozzaok wrote on Feb 17^th, 2009 at 9:09pm:

Great arguments guys, well at least Beo presented arguments, the best the rest could come up with is, what makes you think that councils enforcing policies espoused by greenies, has anything to do with greenies? Duuhhhhh!!! A wild guess maybe? Fair dinkum, if it looks like a turd, and smells like a turd, I guess you better pick it up and taste it, just to make sure.

When the retards get it through their thick heads the GREENS  dont run governments in this country maybe some REAL debate can take place ,until such time,DWMT.
Oh and mozz, dont bother comming in to flame me, you dont cut the mustard son.  

Basically it shouldn't be a blame game. Once we start applying that mentality, local councils are going to close ranks and we're never going to get the facts of the matter. It will end up with everybody blaming each other.

Some of the mismanagement that has led to this disaster is probably inspired by well-meaning concern for the natural environment, however, my understanding is that the message has become garbled largely by lack of understanding at local council level.

There is a confusion here between the Australian Greens, green policies and sound environmental management. Given the outcome, we can hardly say that sound environmental policies have been applied. Therefore we need to investigate the root causes of this tragedy in as transparent a manner as possible. The 'Spanish Inquistion' can basically go to hell. So can political mongers.

What we need to find out in as objective a manner as possible, is how to minimise the probability of this kind of tragedy happening again, and how to best mitigate the risk by appropriate emergency response and early warning systems.

It is obscene to try to gain political mileage out of this. The approach should be non partisan and objectives oriented.

Of course, being a cynic what I think will happen is that we'll end up with a maze of prescriptive regulations that nobody will understand, total confusion and an elite group of Environmental Health and forestry officers with considerably less hair on their heads.

muso wrote on Feb 18^th, 2009 at 11:39am:

Basically it shouldn't be a blame game. Once we start applying that mentality, local councils are going to close ranks and we're never going to get the facts of the matter. It will end up with everybody blaming each other. Some of the mismanagement that has led to this disaster is probably inspired by well-meaning concern for the natural environment, however, my understanding is that the message has become garbled largely by lack of understanding at local council level. There is a confusion here between the Australian Greens, green policies and sound environmental management. Given the outcome, we can hardly say that sound environmental policies have been applied. Therefore we need to investigate the root causes of this tragedy in as transparent a manner as possible. The 'Spanish Inquistion' can basically go to hell. So can political mongers. What we need to find out in as objective a manner as possible, is how to minimise the probability of this kind of tragedy happening again, and how to best mitigate the risk by appropriate emergency response and early warning systems. It is obscene to try to gain political mileage out of this. The approach should be non partisan and objectives oriented. Of course, being a cynic what I think will happen is that we'll end up with a maze of prescriptive regulations that nobody will understand, total confusion and an elite group of Environmental Health and forestry officers with considerably less hair on their heads.

Spot on, now watch the idiots who hang off every word of Divine and Bolt come a running to rip it apart.

Quote:

Come off it FD, you already decided in advance to deny any link

No I haven't. All I have done is ask for evidence that it actually exists.


Quote:

What about the guy who was fined $50,000 for clearing bush around his house to reduce the fire hazard? His was the only one in the are to survive!

What is that evidence of?


Quote:

You would force them further out to sea or to fish off the ocean rocks.

No I wouldn't.  


Quote:

It is obscene to try to gain political mileage out of this.

Exactly. And this is a pretty low attempt to do so. Maybe if there was actual evidence it would be a different story, but it is purely political.

I think we all agree that trying to make political mileage from this tragedy is pretty low, but that does not mean that we should stick our heads in the sand, and ignore the reality of the situation.

Now we see people using the term greens, or greenies, and that is a catch all description for those whose philosophy of leaving nature untouched, was the best policy, merely because it fitted the "idea" of living naturally, and harmoniously, with nature.
It is a nice idea, but impractical, and often implemented far too dogmatically, by these greenies, who are represented in all levels of government, but even where they are not, the influence of the green voting block, has led many councils to implement green policies to placate this group.

This is not an attack on "The Greens" political party, it is just a statement of what I, and most others have observed, and to see people getting so defensive, in denying these facts, is an example of political pigheadedness, where they will ignore the argument, because they don't like the politics of those who present the topic for discussion.

We have seen skippy going feral over it, because if Grendel says it is daytime, then skip, on principle, must declare it to be night, and that does not portray a thoughtful argument, just bloody minded belligerence.

It is unfortunate that it has taken a tragedy of this magnitude, to make governments realise that they need to use world's best scientific principles to manage our forests, not just feel good greenie idealism, because, while well intentioned, it is poorly thought out.

We can expect to see the new policies retain much of the same green conservation ideals, but just with more careful consideration of the implications, and with far better, and more scientifically sound, forest management principles implemented, which is what we should have had all along.

Rather than blaming one side or the other, we just need to accept these facts, and get on and work together to ensure the new systems work as well as possible.

Quote:

and to see people getting so defensive, in denying these facts, is an example of political pigheadedness, where they will ignore the argument, because they don't like the politics of those who present the topic for discussion

It's not that Mozza. It's just that in my experience, typical 'greenies' support burning off, whereas the councils tend to drag their heels for various bureacratic, financial, insurance or procedural reasons that have nothing to do with placating greenies. The investigations into previous fires tends to back this up. It's just a matter of acknowledging reality, rather than substituting your own. It is kind of ludicrous to suggest there is a grassroots movement out there to prevent burning off, but not a single 'greenie' NGO has adopted it as policy.

Well I guess all those submissions from green groups, who opposed fuel reduction burns, because it threatened the natural biodiversity, was just in people's imagination then FD?

I suppose all the requests to remove trees and vegetation close to dwellings, that were refused on environmental grounds, was also nothing to do with pressure from green groups, to keep the native bush pristine.

Who exactly lobbied for the closing of fire trails in the Alpine National Parks?

Lets see what one man says, from his article in The Australian;
 
David Packham | February 10, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

VICTORIA has suffered the most tragic bushfire disaster to have occurred on this continent throughout its period of human habitation.

The deaths, loss of homes and businesses and the blow to our feeling of security will take decades to fade into history. The trauma will live with the victims, who, to a greater or lesser extent, are all of us.

How could this happen when we have been told in a withering, continuous barrage of public relations that with technology and well-polished uniforms, we can cope with the unleashing of huge forces of nature.

I have been a bushfire scientist for more than 50 years, dealing with all aspects of bushfires, from prescribed burning to flame chemistry, and serving as supervisor of fire weather services for Australia. We need to understand what has happened so that we can accept or prevent future fire disasters.

That this disaster was about to happen became clear when the weather bureau issued an accurate fire weather forecast last Wednesday, which prompted me, as a private citizen, to raise the alarm through a memo distributed to concerned residents.

The science is simple. A fire disaster of this nature requires a combination of hot, dry, windy weather in drought conditions. It also requires a source of ignition. In the past, this purpose has been served by lightning. In this disaster, lightning has not played a big part, and for this Victorians should be grateful. But other sources of ignition are ever-present. When the temperature and wind increase to extreme levels, small events -- perhaps the scrape of metal across a rock, a transformer overheating or sparks from a diesel engine -- are capable of starting a fire that can in minutes become unstoppable if the fuel is present.

The third and only controllable factor in this deadly triangle is fuel: the dead leaves, pieces of bark and grass that become the gas that feeds the 50m high flames that roar through the bush with the sound of jet engines.

Fuels build up year after year at an approximate rate of one tonne a hectare a year, up to a maximum of about 30 tonnes a hectare. If the fuels exceed about eight tonnes a hectare, disastrous fires can and will occur. Every objective analysis of the dynamics of fuel and fire concludes that unless the fuels are maintained at near the levels that our indigenous stewards of the land achieved, then we will have unhealthy and unsafe forests that from time to time will generate disasters such as the one that erupted on saturday.

It has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation's capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed.

The decision to ignore the threat has been encouraged by some shocking pseudo-science from a few academics who use arguments that may have a place in political discourse but should have no place in managing our environment and protecting it and us from the bushfire threat.

The conclusion of these academics is that high intensity fires are good for the environment and that the resulting mudslides after rains are merely localised and serve to redistribute nutrients. The purpose of this failed policy is to secure uninformed city votes.

Only a few expert retired fire managers, experienced bushies and some courageous politicians are prepared to buck the decision to lock up our bush and leave it to burn.

The politicians who willingly accept this rubbish use it to justify the perpetuation of the greatest threat to our forests, water supplies, homes and lives in order to secure a minority green vote. They continue to throw millions (and no doubt soon billions) at ineffective suppression toys, while the few foresters and bush people who know how to manage our public lands are starved of the resources they need to reduce fuel loads.

It is hard for me to see this perversion of public policy and to accept that the folk of the bush have lost their battle to live a safe life in a cared-for rural and forest environment, all because of the environmental fantasies of outraged extremists and latte conservationists.

In a letter to my local paper, the Weekly Times, on January 25, I predicted we were facing a very critical situation in which 1000 to 2000 homes could be lost in the Yarra catchment, the Otways and/or the Strezleckies; that 100 souls could be lost in a most horrible and violent way; and that there was even a threat to Melbourne's water supply, which could be rendered unusable by the ash and debris. Horrifically, much of this has come to pass, and it is not yet the end of the bushfire season.

Continued below...........

 
In the face of this inferno, the perpetrators of this obscenity should have the decency to stand up and say they were wrong. Southeast Australia is the worst place in the world for bushfires, and we must not waste any time in getting down to the task of making our bush healthy and safe.

But don't hold your breath. Do you hear that lovely sound the warbling pigs make as they fly by?

David Packham OAM is an honorary senior research fellow at Monash University's school of geography and environmental science.


Well it is just one man's opinion, but it is one man who seems to know what he is talking about, and not because of any political agenda.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25031389-7583,00.html

Quote:

Well I guess all those submissions from green groups, who opposed fuel reduction burns, because it threatened the natural biodiversity, was just in people's imagination then FD?

Which ones?


Quote:

The politicians who willingly accept this rubbish use it to justify the perpetuation of the greatest threat to our forests, water supplies, homes and lives in order to secure a minority green vote.

So that's the evidence? None of you critics seem to comprehend the accusation that is being made here and what kind of evidence would actually support the claim. Just because he is a scientist doesn't mean he understands the politics. If what he claims is true there would be an organised green movement that specifically targets this issue. To suggest that the government would piss off the majority to secure the votes of some non-existent minority that doesn't make it's political presence felt in any way is just ludicrous. This belongs on the fringe board.


Quote:

The conclusion of these academics is that high intensity fires are good for the environment and that the resulting mudslides after rains are merely localised and serve to redistribute nutrients. The purpose of this failed policy is to secure uninformed city votes.

This sounds like it could be a reference to what I was told by an ecologist. His mudslide comment seems very strange, like he is making a strawman argument.

From the viewpoint of environmental management, it is important to understand that social communities come under the umbrella of the environment. It's not about promoting an entirely natural ecosystem, because all ecosystems in Australia are already significantly modfied and dynamic.

Here's an excerpt from the Queensland Environmental Protection Act. Other State legislation has similar definitions.


Quote:

Environment includes-- (a) ecosystems and their constituent parts, including people and communities; and (b) all natural and physical resources; and (c) the qualities and characteristics of locations, places and areas, however large or small, that contribute to their biological diversity and integrity, intrinsic or attributed scientific value or interest, amenity, harmony and sense of community; and (d) the social, economic, aesthetic and cultural conditions that affect, or are affected by, things mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (c).

Therein lies the conflict between Environmental Science and the 'feral greenie' movement. We're not talking about feel-good tree hugging emotive issues here. A successful environmental program needs to look at the whole picture.

There is a huge chasm between the understanding of the public and that of Environmental scientists when it comes to even such basic principles.

Clearly the bushfires in Victoria have been the result of a failure to protect all resources - both natural and social aspects, and the failure has been in the area of providing appropriate controls for the risk of bushfires.

Thanks Mozz...  seems a few of us here at least acknowledge reality.

Manage bush better so climate won't matter
Roger Underwood | February 12, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

LAST year the Wilderness Society published a six-point action plan to "reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat". The society asserted that a "massive increase in hazard reduction burning and firebreaks is destroying nature, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and in many cases increasing the fire risk to people and properties by making areas more fire prone".

In fact there has been no massive increase in prescribed burning; statistics demonstrate that this practice has declined since the 1980s right across southern Australia. And no species of wildlife in Australia can be said to be on the brink of extinction because of prescribed burning.

As we saw last weekend in Victoria, the real threat to wildlife is killer
bushfires, which are a consequence of insufficient prescribed burning.

The trouble with the society's action plan to reduce the risk of bushfires
is that it won't work, and it is worth going through point by point because it reflects the views of too many government decision-makers.

Its key recommendations are:
* Improve aerial fire detection.
* Ramp-up hi-tech suppression forces, including more Helitak copters.
* Do more research into fire behaviour and the impacts of fire on wildlife.
* Around towns and urban areas, carry out fuel reduction burning and have fire breaks.
* Give priority to wildlife and its habitat in remote areas and national
parks.
* Make forests resistant to mega-fires by protecting them from woodchipping and logging.

Taking each of these proposals in turn:
* Aerial detection is a first-rate resource and a comprehensive system of
aerial detection has been in place in all southern Australian states since
the early 1970s, supported (under rising fire danger conditions) by lookout towers.   The greatest problem is that the system can fail completely when it is most needed: under hot, unstable atmospheric conditions and when there are very high winds.

* The dream of hi-tech aerial water bombers dominating forest fires is just that: a dream. It has never succeeded in Australia, and not even in the US,where the entire might of an enormous fleet of water bombers fails repeatedly to handle hot fires burning in heavy fuels. Elvis-type air
cranes cost a fortune, burn massive amounts of fossil fuel, use gigalitres
of precious water and are ineffective in stopping the run of a crown fire
that is throwing spot fires. Water bombers do good work protecting houses from small grass fires. But against a big, hot forest fire and duringnight-time they are next to useless.

* It goes without saying that we need more research into fire behaviour andfire impacts, especially the impacts of large, high-intensity fires on
human lives, fauna, water catchments and soils. But a great deal of
research has been done already, such as the magnificent CSIRO-led Project Vesta studies. The trouble is, the conclusions, while unambiguous, do not support the Wilderness Society's agenda.

* As the society recommends fuel reduction around urban areas, it obviouslyunderstands its value in minimising fire intensity, rather than making theburned areas "more fire prone", as claimed elsewhere in the action plan.

* I agree that insufficient priority is given to wildlife conservation in
national parks and remote areas, but not for the same reasons as the
Wilderness Society. The management of many forested national parks in
Australia has led to a situation in which fuels have accumulated in areas
from which fire has been excluded for many years, often decades. This hasbeen accompanied by the closure of roads and fire trails, and downgradingof trained firefighters in favour of water bombers.
The result is that sooner or later an uncontrollable landscape-level fire
occurs. In addition to all the horrible effects on lives and property,
these fires decimate the wildlife, bake and erode soils and kill stone-dead
the old growth forests over thousands of hectares.
The alternative is more frequent planned burning under mild conditions.
This leads to a mosaic of burned and unburned areas, leaves the overstorey and the soil intact, and ensures a diversity of habitat for wildlife and opportunities for rapid regeneration and recolonisation. In a holistic fire management system this approach is supported by an adequate system of roads and fire trails, maintained so as to allow safe access by firefighters, plus the maintenance of a corps of well-trained, professionally led firefighters.

* There is no evidence that old growth forest is less likely to burn than
the regrowth forests. Fire risk and fire intensity is determined by
climatic and weather conditions, fuel type, fuel weight and dryness, aspect and topography. These factors are independent of the age of the trees overhead.
The claim that mega-fires can be prevented by stopping woodchipping
suggests a policy based on a political agenda rather than knowledge of fire physics or bushfire experience.
pt1...

pt 2

Finally, I note the old chestnut that "global warming will cause inevitable
mega-fires". This is now being said so often by so many pundits that it has achieved the status of biblical truth. What it ignores, however, is the
presence in the system of intelligent and determined humans.

If the computer models are correct and the weather becomes hotter and
drier, it does not inevitably mean that we have to throw up our hands in
despair and retreat into a bunker, waiting for the next inferno to come
roaring over the horizon. We already know how to minimise fire intensity
and fire damage by taking pre-emptive action. Indeed in southern Australia, the computer-generated predictions suggest greater opportunities for fuel reduction burning under mild conditions, as winters will be drier and springs and autumns warmer. Less fuel will lead to less intense fires, less fire damage and easier and safer fire suppression, to say nothing of healthier, greener forests.

While there are many deficiencies in Australian bushfire policies and
practices, the solution is not the throwing up of hands, as suggested by
the climate doomsdayers, or the sort of measures put forward by the
Wilderness Society. It lies in strong leadership from land managers who are prepared to put bushfire preparedness and damage mitigation in front of the razzle-dazzle of aerial suppression technology. It requires governments to put more resources into research and into monitoring bushfire outcomes, including the environmental impacts of large, high-intensity bushfires and continuous feedback to management systems from real-world experience out in the forest.

Roger Underwood is a former firefighter and a district and regional managerwith the Forests Department in WA. He is chairman of Bush Fire Front, anorganisation dedicated to best practice in bushfire management in Australia.

BUT WHAT WOULD HE KNOW ...  RIGHT?

OR THIS MAN...

A cynical fire fighter of Tasmania 10:09am February 16, 2009

I support Rodgers assertions. Foresters and other forest managers
understand the science. We understand the ecological and adaptive processes which make our flora unique. We understand fire behaviour. What we do not understand is deliberate and misleading political rhetoric espoused by green groups like the Wilderness Society and their political wing run by Bob brown. To me, the heart of the issue is accountability and green groups have none, and accept none. The insidious infiltration of local government, community groups and departments is criminal when the aftermath of their policies result in catastrophic events as recently witnessed in Victoria. I am a forester who had over 15 years experience at senior levels in land
management, including as incident controller at fire events. Over my career, I have seen a steady erosion of active fire mitigation management policy.

Local governments have stopped back yard burning, initiated tree
preservation orders and enforced the replacement of exotic (less flammable) gardens in parks and backyards with native (and flammable) alternatives.

While doing this, these same councils have allowed inappropriate
subdivisions in high risk areas to progress. MORE PEOPLE and MORE FUEL is the result of these policies. Community groups have actively argued against fuel reduction programs because of smoke over neighbourhoods. This has lead to the imposition of restrictive climatic requirements having to be meet before fuel reduction burns are carried out. These restrictions are so prescriptive that the window of opportunity to carry out these burns is limited, or impossible. I remember once it took me over two years to find the right window to carry out a fuel reduction burn. MORE RESTRICTIONS =
LESS ACTIVITY = MORE FUEL.  

While the anti-smoke brigade has been active,the lets leave nature alone brigade has reduced active management in parks and reserves.

Fire trails are ripped up to stop people getting into the parks. Hazard reduction burning is reduced to perimeters (if at all) and risk assessment is discouraged. LESS MANAGEMENT = MORE FUEL. Departments responsible for managing risk have also become managers of political risk.

The risk to the environment or the community is secondary. Scientists are no longer employed as managers. Managers are employed who have no practical land management experience%u2026but are great budgetary or political managers. Scientific research is declining in favour of technological innovation and other flavour-of-the-month buzz. Solid science, backed by experience is what is required. POLITICAL IGNORANCE = MORE FUEL. I would be surprised if Mr Brown sleeps at night knowing his policies have contributed to the Victorian, the Canberran, the Sydney, etc, etc situation.

The most depressing outcome of the Victorian fires is that this level of destruction and tragic loss of life will result in zero changes being implemented.

History tells us that green groups will spend big to ensure they are not
held accountable. Bureaucratic managers will ensure their political masters are protected. Community groups will allow a few token burns, for a few years. At the end of the day, there will continue to be MORE FUEL.

OR THIS ONE...

Field Forester of Western Australia 11:39am February 13, 2009
When i read Roger's article I'm thinking " Thank god someone is finally
saying what I know to be true.."

"Finally someone seems to have a voice out there amongst all that misinformation" but then i get disheartened again when i read some of the responses, many that are well meaning but just plain wrong in regards to an understanding of fire behaviour.. and, at worst, dangerous if considered for implementation like Greens policy..

All this talk about extreme weather/climate change...WA has some of the
hottest/windiest weather in the country so the question has to be asked why we dont have huge forest fires every year that kill people.. and the answer is a broadscale, rotational programme of prescribed burning (PB) introduced as a result of a holocaustic fire in the early 60's in which people were killed (sound familiar)...But then it was foresters who provided the answer, as the recognised experts in fire management..not conservation activists or fire emergency managers who really have no day to day role in managing the bush... However, as is typical when memories of horror fades, the Western Australian PB programme is starting to fray around the edges, particular where increasing constraints on burn approvals are occuring due to pressure from urban populations..and consequently we are starting to see the return of larger fires in these areas where PB is reduced. So in answer
to some of the blogs here..yes a large programme can be done if the
resources are allocated...Someone here mentioned that an annual programme of 10000ha was done in Victoria...well WA aims to achieve over 100000ha of burning per annum..at around $50-100/ha...Yes 5-10million sounds like a lot of money but not really when you look at the huge cost of wildfire suppression and disaster relief... Are our forests turned to deserts by PB as someone else has asserted?? the answer is a definitive no...in fact, with the addition of foxbaiting, we are actually seeing the return of many rarer species of marsupial.. In answer to the suggestion that there is a lack of knowledge regarding the effects of prescribed burning...Wrong...the Forest Dept and subsequently CALM and DEC have been conducting and
publishing fire research in conjunction with the CSIRO for many years..
None of these studies have ever proven the loss of a single species of
plant or animal through the use of prescribed fire..

Want more information about Prescribed Burning take a look at this site..
http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/fire/fire-management/index.html Oh and despite the sea of evidence supporting PB I just heard yesterday that Minister Garrett is supporting changes to the Federal Environmental Protection legislation that lists PB as a "threatening process".. This will provide many more political constraints to burn approvals.. Its not one thing in isolation but a chain of events that leads to a disaster...

OR...

CCMuz of Central Coast 8:33pm February 12, 2009

Being a forester I have some experience and knowledge of bushfires. It
appears to me that the greens/extreme environmentalists are now practicing an ecological version of Terra Nullius, they just seem to ignore the fact that this land has been managed by humans for over 40 000 years. Deliberate burning in the cooler months will greatly reduce the loss of life, property, wildlife, and protect water quality - no doubt about it. We have had problems with wildfire ever since we removed the aboriginal peoples.

Look at past Royal Commissions. We have achieved some extraordinary things in this country, I am sure we can manage effective deliberate burning programs if we decided to. I am critical of the ABC and many media outlets who over the past decade or two have blindly accepted what green groups have said, without question. It is difficult to believe that the more extreme environmentalists will listen to any other points of view. Death threats against professional foresters have been quite regular over the years. They have beliefs akin to religious fundamentalists.

A lot of these burnt forests have been 'saved' by mostly city-based greens supposedly to protect water, native animals, biodiversity etc. This has failed, catastrophically, again. However, the negative environmental impacts of those fires and into Kosciusko and Victoria were not highlighted by the media. After the Canberra fires the water in dams in the brindabellas was not suitable for drinking for 12 months or so. Where were the pictures of burnt wildlife, massive erosion, decimated threatened species populations (eg mountain pygmy possum, corroboree frog)?

I hope we can use this disaster to improve the management of the bush, and avoid such human tragedy and environmental damage. I fear this will not happen because the environmental damage will be grossly under-reported and the extreme environmentalists will get away with unchallenged propaganda, particularly on the ABC, but in the media generally. And the main political parties will still be looking to do preference deals ...

Oh and just another point...  having been interested in politics and policy most of my adult life I am aware of THE GREENS policies...  which continually change and are in many areas greatly improved upon today than they were at the beginning.  

But Federally you will not find a BUSHFIRE POLICY.  Nor do most states have an Official policy in fact I think WA and NSW may be the only states with anything like policy on it and these came about only after they suffered great bushfire disasters and as a response to the attacks on them due to the influence of their policies over decades.

Thanks Grendel. Some of those hit the mark. Is the wilderness society policy available online?

oh and another thing...  just came over the radio after the Garrett interview...  on TV on Sunday there was a forum and apparently a head of a green NGO said that "fuel" was not a contributing issue in the recent fires...  he obviously got howled down by the people from Gippsland there and was asked where he came from in the end he gave it up...  inner city Melbourne.   :D

Grendel wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 11:34am:

oh and another thing...  just came over the radio after the Garrett interview...  on TV on Sunday there was a forum and apparently a head of a green NGO said that "fuel" was not a contributing issue in the recent fires...  he obviously got howled down by the people from Gippsland there and was asked where he came from in the end he gave it up...  inner city Melbourne.   :D

I saw that show, yes he did come from inner city Melbourne, so what?
I live in the bush and you live in the city boofy, so by your reasoning my point of view must be more accurate than yours, ha ha ha

Hey Skippy...  more feral ranting?  No idea of what the people there were saying?
No surprise there Skippy.

This burning issue of life and death
Miranda Devine
February 19, 2009

One of the biggest furphies in the supercharged debate in the wake of Victoria's bushfires is the claim by green groups that they are great supporters of hazard reduction burning.

Also known as prescribed burning, this scientific regime creates a mosaic of lightly burned land at regular intervals of five to seven years, thus reducing surface fuel loads by varying amounts within the mosaic.

This reduction of fuel loads is expensive, but Australia's pre-eminent bushfire researchers, such as the CSIRO's Phil Cheney and Monash University's David Packam, say it has been proven to reduce the power and intensity of fire. Every bushfire inquiry since the 1939 Stretton royal commission has recommended increased prescribed burning to mitigate the effects of inevitable wildfire.

It is a matter of public record that green groups have long opposed such systematic prescribed burning, as is evident in their submissions to bushfire inquiries from as far back as 1992. They complain of a threat to biodiversity, including to fungi, from "frequent burning" regimes and urge resources be spent on water bombers and early detection, as well as on stopping climate change - good luck with that.

Yet last week, Jonathan La Nauze of Friends of the Earth, Melbourne, in a letter to this newspaper claimed: "…not one Australian environmental organisation is opposed to prescribed burning … Environment groups are engaged in a sophisticated debate about where and how prescribed burning can be most effective."

Yes, it's sophisticated, all right. It just depends how you define "prescribed burning".

On the other side of the country, one Peter Robertson, the West Australian co-ordinator of the Wilderness Society, was singing from a different song sheet. His letter last week to The West Australian stated: "Experience and risk analysis show that repeatedly burning tens of thousands of hectares of remote bushland and forest will do little to address the threat of bushfires to human communities … It would be a huge mistake if the community was led to believe that a massive, expensive and environmentally destructive prescribed burning program was going to protect them when it could make matters worse." Robertson is no lone ranger among greens in opposition to prescribed burning.

The WA Forest Alliance, for instance, lodged a submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the 2001-02 bushfires, claiming: "Frequent fires have a disastrous effect on many species of flora and fauna and their habitat structure." WWF Australia's submission claimed: "Inappropriate fire hazard regimes can damage biodiversity leading to the loss of native species, communities and ecosystems."

The NSW Greens state on their website as part of their bushfire risk management policy: "There is an urgent need to correct the common misconception that responsible fire management always involves burning or clearing to reduce moderate and high fuel loads…"

In 2003, lightning strikes in fuel-rich national parks in NSW and the ACT sparked bushfires which swept into Canberra, killing four people.

Days later, the NSW Nature Conservation Council's then chairman, Rob Pallin, described calls for increased prescribed burning as "futile" and a "knee-jerk reaction". "People who claim that hazard reduction burning is a cure-all for bushfire risk are either fooling themselves or deliberately trying to fool the public." It is another clever tactic of those who oppose broadscale prescribed burning to claim that it is not a "cure-all" for bushfire risk. No one has ever claimed it is.

As Cheney repeatedly has said, wildfires will occur, but prescribed burning reduces the intensity of a fire burning "under any set of meteorological conditions", and it reduces the spread of the fire, allowing firefighters to construct effective control lines.

And yet there have been recent moves to have controlled burning listed as a "key threatening process" under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Such a submission has reportedly been received by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee.

pt1

pt 2

In NSW, already, the Department of Environment and Conservation has listed "too frequent fire" as a "key threatening process to biodiversity".

But the real threatening process is the holocaust we have just seen in Victoria.

Last week angry fire survivors in Victoria pointed the finger at local authorities who prevented clearing of vegetation. At a public meeting in Arthurs Creek, Warwick Spooner, who lost his mother and brother in the Strathewen fire, stood up criticise the Nillumbik council.

"We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down." Then of course, there is Liam Sheahan, the Reedy Creek home owner whose house is the only one in a two-kilometre area which survived the fires. In 2004 he was fined $50,000 for removing 247 trees around his hilltop house to protect it from fire. His two-year court battle against the Mitchell Shire Council cost him $50,000 in legal fees.

It is a rich irony that Slidders Lawyers last week launched a class action on behalf of fire victims at Kinglake, against the Singapore-owned electricity company SP AusNet, alleging the fire was caused by a fallen power line.

After all, it was only in 2001 that Transgrid bulldozed a 60-metre wide firebreak under its high-voltage lines in the Snowy Mountains. For that it was prosecuted by four government agencies, blasted for "environmental vandalism" by the then NSW premier Bob Carr, and fined $500,000.

Two years later, during the disastrous firestorm that engulfed the mountains, the offending firebreak became the only safe haven for kangaroos and workers constructing a fire trail. The sad truth of such holocausts is that the environmental toll ends up worse than the most vigorous prescribed burning regime ever could be.

Victoria's bushfires have spewed millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - more than a third of Australia's entire output for a year, according to Sydney University's Professor Mark Adams.

No doubt the royal commission will recommend, like previous inquiries, that prescribed burning should be increased. After so many deaths will anyone listen this time?

OH AND SKIPPY...  it would depend on your pov and what you said etc...  I gather that was when they asked him where he came from...   :o

Grendel wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 12:06pm:

OH AND SKIPPY...  it would depend on your pov and what you said etc...  I gather that was when they asked him where he came from...   :o

More  devine, where"s the  balance boofy, is she all you read?

BTW , I live in the bush I support the Greens and I regularly burn off,
the hoe got it wrong again.

I read lots more Skippy...  if you did you'd know what the greenies have been saying for decades and not just what they are giving lip service to now  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
please don't engage me anymore...  just comment on the content.

Grendel wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 12:18pm:

I read lots more Skippy...  if you did you'd know what the greenies have been saying for decades and not just what they are giving lip service to now  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D please don't engage me anymore...  just comment on the content.

I dont engage you  I correct you, and you need much of that, you have no idea just the cuts and pastes of a liberal party whore.

The content is pure bullshit.

It is a very small minded person who would write then post such poo for pure political purpose, Devine has shown that when it comes to lying for political gain she is as low as Bolt and Ackerman.
The sad thing is many retards believe her slander.

Well if a fire comes your way skip, only your bum will burn, because you have your head firmly stuck in the sand.

I support the greens also, but that doesn't mean I need to support their mistakes.
We all make mistakes, but if we are smart, we own up, and learn from them.

You don't see many smart politicians admitting to making a mistake.

Grendel wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 11:11am:

OR... CCMuz of Central Coast 8:33pm February 12, 2009 Being a forester I have some experience and knowledge of bushfires. It appears to me that the greens/extreme environmentalists are now practicing an ecological version of Terra Nullius, they just seem to ignore the fact that this land has been managed by humans for over 40 000 years. Deliberate burning in the cooler months will greatly reduce the loss of life, property, wildlife, and protect water quality - no doubt about it. We have had problems with wildfire ever since we removed the aboriginal peoples.

This is an important point. The aborigines significantly altered the natural environment in Australia by their slash and burn techniques.

The result was that the predominantly Casuarina vegetation gave way to a predominance of Eucalypt forest. The Eucalypt will regenrate after bushfires, whereas casuarina tends to die out. That's one of the reasons that we see so many Casuarina spp. in wetlands or fire resistant areas of Northern Australia.

Given that the ecosystem has been modified, it becomes essential to continue burning the forest, although the frequency of burning should not be too great or it reduces biodiversity and increases the risk of a severe canopy fire at some stage in the future due to excessive growth in the canopy (the canopy should be allowed to burn at intervals. If you have burnoffs too often, that won't happen)

The Wilderness society 6 point plan recognises the above points and others. It might seem like a good idea to have more frequent burnoffs, but the overall result for wildlife and society will be worse.

By the way, I have been a specialist advisor to the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service since 1992, and I have organised a number of exercises and have been using the AIIMS framework since it first came out. I'm also an advisor to our local Counter Disaster committee. So I can see the strategic picture from both the Fire Service and the Environmental point of view.  

I also live in the bush most of the time, so I know what I'm talking about. I've see what happens when a bushfire meets a hill.  You need to see it to understand how quickly it can happen. It makes the hairs on your neck stand up (and you tend to come out with some colourful expletives). It's all too easy to be caught in that kind of situation.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 2:50pm:

Well if a fire comes your way skip, only your bum will burn, because you have your head firmly stuck in the sand. I support the greens also, but that doesn't mean I need to support their mistakes. We all make mistakes, but if we are smart, we own up, and learn from them.

Mozz, get deleted

Is that another attempt at a reasoned response skip?

I think you need to separate yourself from your prejudices, disagreeing on an issue, does not make people your enemy, if you think that way then be prepared to have lots of enemies, because absolutely no-one, will always agree with you.

How many times have I had Grendel attack me in the past??

Quite a lot, as you know, but he is just someone who holds different opinions, on some issues, he is not my enemy, nor yours, and I think you need to not lose sight of that fact.

You are right to question the motives of journalists like devine, but that too does not mean that every thing she says, is always wrong.

freediver wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 2:54pm:

You don't see many smart politicians admitting to making a mistake.

Oh but some gain some mileage from it (vis à vis Hawke in tears about his drug addicted progeny; Rudd in the strip club)

freediver wrote on Feb 19^th, 2009 at 2:54pm:

You don't see many smart politicians admitting to making a mistake.

An example you have followed, it would seem.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 9:05am:

Is that another attempt at a reasoned response skip? I think you need to separate yourself from your prejudices, disagreeing on an issue, does not make people your enemy, if you think that way then be prepared to have lots of enemies, because absolutely no-one, will always agree with you. How many times have I had Grendel attack me in the past?? Quite a lot, as you know, but he is just someone who holds different opinions, on some issues, he is not my enemy, nor yours, and I think you need to not lose sight of that fact. You are right to question the motives of journalists like devine, but that too does not mean that every thing she says, is always wrong.

About as reasoned as you telling me I have my head up my butt mozz.
I'm not the one with prejudice mozz that would be the retards out there trying to blame the Greens for political gain, I could sit here and blame the Liberal party for being climate change deniers and say it was because of their lack of action on climate change Victoria is on fire whilst I'm flooding, but that is as small minded as the retards putting the blame on the Greens.
Its all well and good to want to blame somebody  for whats happened but retards like Divine and her supporters are just lying nasty little grubs who are pushing a political view.
Wait for the royal commision.

Actually, I had your butt on fire, and your head in the sand, but I take your point, it was a cheap dig, but hey, that is what we do sometimes, when we try to make a point.

I happen to agree that greenie idealism, played a contributing part, in the extreme outcomes of these fires, certainly not a sole determinant, but a part, and I think denying that is unhelpful.

Just trying to make one group the scapegoat, is also unhelpful, and I certainly sympathise with why the likes of devine so enrage you, but even so, if they make a valid point, I will not try and deny it, no matter what their motive.

mozzaok wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 9:50am:

Actually, I had your butt on fire, and your head in the sand, but I take your point, it was a cheap dig, but hey, that is what we do sometimes, when we try to make a point. I happen to agree that greenie idealism, played a contributing part, in the extreme outcomes of these fires, certainly not a sole determinant, but a part, and I think denying that is unhelpful. Just trying to make one group the scapegoat, is also unhelpful, and I certainly sympathise with why the likes of devine so enrage you, but even so, if they make a valid point, I will not try and deny it, no matter what their motive.

Being an eternal Centrist, I can also see good points in things people say from all sides of politics. I align myself with intelligent, carefully reasoned points of view, not parties. People who slavishly follow the party line tend to annoy me.

The problem is that the Devine article is obviously designed to gain some political mileage and is a bit one sided.

Well there's been lots more than the "Devine" article here and it also has some factual ie good points.

Unlike the personal attacks and empty rhetoric of others here.

Grendel wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 10:28am:

Well there's been lots more than the "Devine" article here and it also has some factual ie good points. Unlike the personal attacks and empty rhetoric of others here.

Just because someone thinks a point is good does not make it factual.
Tho the point about all the empty rhetoric by the retards trying to score political  points is sooooooooooooooooo true.

I have no idea why muso allows you to post here Skippy, you add nothing to the debate except rubbish.

Grendel wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 11:02am:

I have no idea why muso allows you to post here Skippy, you add nothing to the debate except rubbish.

Hey he lets you post all your bulls hit, so he must be very tollerable.

Yeah what bullsh is that SKippy?

Come on lets see you actually refute something I've said.  Or if incapable of that factually refute the facts in other articles.  Or perhaps you'd prefer to live in denial of the anecdotal evidence provided...   :D :D :D

Ancedotal
Evidence in the form of an anecdote or hearsay is called anecdotal if there is doubt about its veracity: the evidence itself is considered untrustworthy or untrue.

See even the dictionary says what you post is "untrustworthy or untrue" please keep it up boofy, its much less time consuming on me when you make these claims about yourself.

Try again skip...  you are wrong yet again in these cases. people have put their names to them and they are verifiable.

As for your grasp of English....  

an⋅ec⋅do⋅tal
   /ˈænɪkˌdoʊtl, ˌænɪkˈdoʊtl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [an-ik-doht-l, an-ik-doht-l] Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1.      pertaining to, resembling, or containing anecdotes: an anecdotal history of jazz.
2.      based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation: anecdotal evidence.

Seems you can't even get that righ Squippy.

You see boofy, you've just proved if you look hard enough you can find enough s hit to back up any argument, my meaning is just as real as yours, just from different sources, but dont let that get in the way of a good yarn will you.

If you guys have a problem with 'squippy' and 'boofy' let me know, otherwise I'll leave them be unedited because it's too much of an effort. If you do, please try to self moderate - ok?

I don't mind you posting 'bs' or 'rubbish' as long as it's entertaining bs  ;D

Let em go for it, is my opinion, and I hardly ever see anything that I would wish to have moderated, just porn, or overly graphic violent images, and over the top grossness, are the only things that I don't want to see on my screen, petty name calling is neither here nor there to me.

I thought we had got back on track, then beo had to come in and get it riled up again, I can just picture an evil little smirk on his face as he lays the bait, and that is why I find his complaining about others actions a little disingenuous, just occasionally, but I can't say I don't find it entertaining at times.

Quote:

Let em go for it, is my opinion, and I hardly ever see anything that I would wish to have moderated, just porn, or overly graphic violent images, and over the top grossness, are the only things that I don't want to see on my screen, petty name calling is neither here nor there to me. I thought we had got back on track, then beo had to come in and get it riled up again, I can just picture an evil little smirk on his face as he lays the bait, and that is why I find his complaining about others actions a little disingenuous, just occasionally, but I can't say I don't find it entertaining at times.

I agree.

Well you'd both be wrong...  I'd sooner he be gone for good... one less personal abuser is fine by me.

Unlike him I couldn't leave valid factual information not posted.

Oh and just where is anything from him more than his denial and biased opinion...  answer...  nowhere.

Quote:

Well you'd both be wrong...  I'd sooner he be gone for good... one less personal abuser is fine by me. Unlike him I couldn't leave valid factual information not posted. Oh and just where is anything from him more than his denial and biased opinion...  answer...  nowhere.

There are very few people who've ever had a problem with Skippy, Grendel.  His posts are valid and political - it's just you who can't see that.

When you make personal comments about people's spelling and the quality of their posts - that's called flaming and the only time I see Skippy retaliate is when someone gets nasty and personal towards him.  He might respond to baiting posts, but he never instigates them.

You have to be perfect before you denigrate someone else.

never been a spelling bazi mantra got me confused with someone else.  or just the year of pick on grendel with you...  if you want to post stick to the topic...  I'd appreciate it.

maybe you could find some valid arguments for Skippy then.

Skippy started it here and always starts it mantra...  he can't help himself.  I didn't retaliate for several posts.  Might be nice if you left your bias at home for a change.

Quote:

As for your grasp of English....   an⋅ec⋅do⋅tal    /ˈænɪkˌdoʊtl, ˌænɪkˈdoʊtl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [an-ik-doht-l, an-ik-doht-l] Show IPA Pronunciation –adjective 1.      pertaining to, resembling, or containing anecdotes: an anecdotal history of jazz. 2.      based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation: anecdotal evidence. Seems you can't even get that righ Squippy.

Sorry Grendel - it must be my imagination.  


Quote:

or just the year of pick on grendel with you...

No - I have always stuck up for people that are being picked on - that hasn't changed.  I've even stuck up for you at times.

You are posting what anecdotal means again because...  ?

is it because skippy got it wrong and I had to correct his lies?  No?

Hmmm...

You've made a lot of idiotic personal attack on me this year mantra...  and every time you do I'll call them what they are.  And every stupid statement you make I'll call it for what it is, just like calanan and others do.

Quote:

You've made a lot of idiotic personal attack on me this year mantra...  and every time you do I'll call them what they are.  And every stupid statement you make I'll call it for what it is, just like calanan and others do.

Yes of course - you and Calanen are such nice, logical people - it really hurts me when you both give me a hard time.  ::)

yet another topic being turned into one of your must tell grendel what I think of him topics...  boring.

Obsessive to say the least.

It's a shame with all of grendels huffing and puffing that we missed a critical point. That is, is the wilderness societ policy based on sound management? Is it a blanket opposition to burning off, or a recognition of the need to burn the canopy off occasionally too? Grendel you really should include links with these things. I'm surprised Grendel is encouraging the diversion seeing as he brought it up. Maybe he knows it won't stand up to critical analysis.


Quote:

This is an important point. The aborigines significantly altered the natural environment in Australia by their slash and burn techniques.

How much did they actually change it though? It is a naturally dry continent, and there are always natural sparks, like lightning.

yawn...

I just reply to what directed at me fd.

that includes your ltes and flames too.

No huffing or puffing from me just bored disappointed at the same old crap always aimed at me, when you cant direct a proper argument.

Oh and this...

Quote:

This is an important point. The aborigines significantly altered the natural environment in Australia by their slash and burn techniques.

wasn't said by me.  liar liar pants on fire.

You like mantra are too quick to always blame me or misquote me...  tsk, tsk, tsk...  and its a pity you didn't link back to it so it would have been easier to find.

You people bore and and annoy me with your petty behaviour.

Quote:

wasn't said by me.  liar liar pants on fire

.

I didn't say you said it Grendel.


Quote:

I just reply to what directed at me fd.

No you don't. You assume everything is directed at you, even when it clearly isn't.


Grendel wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 10:50pm:

So is this another Everyone vs Grendel topic or are you flaming me in the first post by accident?

I was just explaining what motivated the thread Grendel.

Nice try fd...  you address me and provide a quote etc...

liar liar pants on fire :D

muso wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 1:17pm:

If you guys have a problem with 'squippy' and 'boofy' let me know, otherwise I'll leave them be unedited because it's too much of an effort. If you do, please try to self moderate - ok? I don't mind you posting 'bs' or 'rubbish' as long as it's entertaining bs  ;D

No worries muso, I'll keep posting entertaining posts and by the looks of things boofy is going to keep up his end of the bargain  by  posting the "bs" and "rubbish".

As far as aborigines burning off large tracts of bush, there were many reasons, but it was more for predictability and control.  Their fires weren't as all encompassing as ours and didn't alter the landscape in the way we did by clearing large tracts of land for crops, cattle grazing etc.


Ultimately burning gave people control of the landscape, whereby they would not be surprised by unplanned fire and could do particular burning activities as a matter of choice. They were in charge and burning probably came to symbolise being in control. The sight of long unburnt country was disturbing and the sight of well burned landscape was a source of satisfaction.

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper3/fire18.html#aboriginal

mantra wrote on Feb 21^st, 2009 at 10:06am:

As far as aborigines burning off large tracts of bush, there were many reasons, but it was more for predictability and control.  Their fires weren't as all encompassing as ours and didn't alter the landscape in the way we did by clearing large tracts of land for crops, cattle grazing etc. Ultimately burning gave people control of the landscape, whereby they would not be surprised by unplanned fire and could do particular burning activities as a matter of choice. They were in charge and burning probably came to symbolise being in control. The sight of long unburnt country was disturbing and the sight of well burned landscape was a source of satisfaction. http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper3/fire18.html#aboriginal

Large scale burning still happens in the NT, up there its law to have fire breaks around all property.
One of the problems we have now that the aboriginals didn't have is all the introduced weed, like lantana. which has taken over many parks and private property, if the weed inspectors did their jobs a little better that would also make a huge difference to the fuel about in forests.

So the weed inspectors would solve the problem by filling out lots of forms, thereby creating massive demand for paper and getting the forests chopped down?

freediver wrote on Feb 21^st, 2009 at 10:53am:

So the weed inspectors would solve the problem by filling out lots of forms, thereby creating massive demand for paper and getting the forests chopped down?

You havn't dealt with a weed inspector have you fd? no paper work mate, they turn up to your property and give you a month to sort out what they dont like, to much groundsel or lantana whatever, if you dont sort it they start sending you fines, dont you have weed inspectors in QLD?

wrote on Feb 21^st, 2009 at 11:17am:

freediver wrote on Feb 21st, 2009 at 10:53am: So the weed inspectors would solve the problem by filling out lots of forms, thereby creating massive demand for paper and getting the forests chopped down? You havn't dealt with a weed inspector have you fd? no paper work mate, they turn up to your property and give you a month to sort out what they dont like, to much groundsel or lantana whatever, if you dont sort it they start sending you fines, dont you have weed inspectors in QLD?

We do. They are attached to the local councils and in my experience, take a proactive role in obnoxoius weed control. You just have to mention parthenium or rubber vine and they are on the spot with basal spray or whatever.  We still have hectares of Lantana though. It's practically endemic.

Well we don't have weed problems to any extent comparable with the tropical forests, and I have never even seen a weed inspector in Victoria.

We do have laws which prohibit the removal of any native plants on your property, and you must get permits, even to just lop, or trim native plants, which are rarely approved, so if you wish to remove any, it can become an expensive legal battle to get permission.

We have seen situations where people have bought cleared, rural, pasture land, and spent lots revegetating with native flora, and then spent thousands to get permits to thin it where necessary.

It is this idiotic philosophy, that people feel is "Greenism" gone mad, that is at the crux of the problem in the areas just burnt.

So while weeds may well add to your problems up north, it is more the obsessive protection of native plants, even where they pose a threat to dwellings, that is what concerns people in the areas, still at risk.

Technically, I believe that permits would legally, need to be obtained to even cut firebreaks affecting native plants, even while the fires are threatening your life and property.

So when people talk about green principles contributing to the amount of devastation caused by this fire, their are thousands of people who will attest to that as a personal factor in their case.
This was because they were either refused permission to clear trees, or didn't even bother applying, because they assumed, from the experiences of friends and neighbours, that they would not get permission.

Now we are hoping to see these draconian rules eased, in the wakre of what's happened.
The people involved generally love trees, and nature, and do not want to concrete the bush, they just want to see a system where common sense, and equal respect for safety, is considered along with protecting native plants.

I think that the more powerful the greenies become, the less effective they become. Purely because of non-sequitor political
motives.
For the most part, people move to the bush for the logical motive of being more in tune with the world around them. This usually tells them that they must safegaurd themselves from any dangers which may occur. This doesn't require the help of, nor the red tape or useless government rules. There's no substitute for common sense, and governments don't  possess enough of it to realise that they don't possess it at all.

Once again I complain about the destruction of common sense, because I fear that submitting myself to a lifestyle which I disagree with will cause me to lose it altogether - if I haven't already done so.

On that fateful Saturday, I was on my way to the Eildon area. I usually travel through Flowerdale because it's a nice drive amongst the trees and winding roads.
I saw the fires from a distance and the Hume Hwy had just closed so I got diverted through Wallan.
I then stopped at Wallan to top up with fuel whilst planning another route to my destinaton.
Getting out of the car was like stepping into a furnace. The wind, the smoke and the heat was something I've never really experienced before - as was the 46+ C conditions of the day.
I considered foregoing the camping trip and returning home, but as there were no reports of immediate danger on the radio at that stage, I continued on.

Just past Braodford, I looked for a route across to a road that I usually travel on. Cars were streaming in the opposite direction and I knew I wasn't going that way, but being the rubberneck that I am, I wanted to take a closer look at this surreal situation.
People were taking pics, and I took a few too with my mobile camera. When I got back to the intersection that I turned down, it was closed off to oncoming traffic. Kudos to the local country police there.
Travelling further along the Nothern Hwy towards Kilmore, the situation got even more surreal. CFA convoys of every available jalopy were around and CFA's at each town I crossed were a hive of activity. Police cars were flashing their headlights and sirens, and roads were blocked in most directions.

But I relied mainly on the radio to alert me of any real impending danger. That was a mistake. That was stupid, just like I've been brought up to be.

Eventually I travelled around Seymour, which was out of the danger area, and upon reaching my destination I phoned home to say that everything was OK.
The reaction was a pretty apathetic "oh that's nice, enjoy your trip" kinda stuff. The next day when I realised the gravity of the situation, I phoned home again, but nobody was there so I left a message saying that everything is OK where I am.

Over the next few days of the camping trip, we were all inundated with enquiries directed to the local police, publicans, etc. even though we'd all phoned to say that everything is OK.
The point is, that news comes later. It's really no good to anybody if it's past tense news. Common sense is to do with the here and now and the realities of situations, not the media reports that come later.

Nomatter how much I go on about using common sense and ignoring government rhetoric, I still failed myself. I failed to use my common sense.
I failed because I did not react properly to the impending danger because I heard nothing about it on the radio.
For that I have nobody to blame but myself. But for too many people, the option between choosing their own common sense and incurring a ridiculous fine is overwhelmingly in favour of towing the government line.

As with the controversy surrounding the Canberra fires - the total blame can be laid fairly and squarely on the state government for these fires as I stated in my first post on this thread. The Greens are not and never have been responsible for the mess our states and territories get themselves into by mismanaging funds meant for essential works.


Ten weeks after the devastating Black Saturday bushfires the Victorian government has been slammed for not meeting burnoff targets.

An opposition analysis of prescribed burning figures shows 20 per cent of land earmarked for burnoff in the past decade went untouched.

Hazardous fuel loads were left to accumulate on more than 200,000 hectares of land - an area twice the size of the Great Otway National Park.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) has only met burnoff targets in the past two years since 1999.

Nationals leader Peter Ryan said it was a "lamentable effort", blaming funding and staff shortages for the shortfall.

"The key issue here is making the money available, making the manpower available," he said.

"One thing we know for certain, we are going to have more bushfires in Victoria. Preventive burning therefore is a vital program."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=804178

It is highly disingenuous for political enemies to use those figures to try and score political points, whilst failing to acknowledge that the ongoing drought, and a sparsity of suitable conditions for managing controlled burns, was the primary reason that these targets were not met.

Rather than try and mislead people into believing a secret agenda was in play, to make the government try to not meet it's own targets, which appears to be the National's spokesman's aim, a more honest assessment would be expected from any party with a shred of moral decency.

But, political parties which make moral decency, and honesty, a priority, are very hard to find, anywhere in the political spectrum.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25683580-5006785,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/specials/0,,5018722,00.html


Quote:

THE Marysville bushfire created a fire storm similar to the one that destroyed Dresden in World War II, the royal commission has heard.