03-01-2020, 04:46 AM
21
Re: Australian Fires
Despite the assurances given by our expert on Australia the facts are slightly different.In the June/July 2019 budget the state government stripped over $30million from the budget of the Fire and Rescue Service and the Rural Fire Brigade. Even worse they decimated the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, the very people that organise and manage hazard reduction in the national parks (nearly 9% of NSW is National Park).
$121 million was cut from NSW national parks in the 2016-17 budget, shedding about 100 ranger jobs. In the 2019 budget, $80 million was cut from the department overseeing parks.
The federal and state governments have a lot to answer for in this unprecedented crisis and people are waking up to it.
Scott Morrison has shown all the empathy of a cabbage. As we do with most Kiwis who make it good, Australia should claim Jacinda Ardern is actually Australian and get rid of the current galah.
BTW Scott Morrison is off to India in two weeks to try to sell them more coal, he is going with Mark Vaile, chairman of Whitehaven Coal who was once deputy Prime Minister in the Howard liberal Government. They want to ensure full employment for fire fighters into the future.
03-01-2020, 05:36 AM
22
Re: Australian Fires
Bruce.This article was written ten years ago.
Seems nothing was learnt.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/g...0211-84mk.html
03-01-2020, 05:43 AM
24
Re: Australian Fires
I should add that it is just not possible to carry out hazard reduction burns as was done in the past purely because of the longer fire season and the drier winters. Of course they are still done but not as much as in the past because of the above reasons and the spending cuts mentioned in a previous post.There is also a (small) nimby element to this, "How dare you burn my lovely bushland"
03-01-2020, 08:27 AM
26
Re: Australian Fires
Rather ironically, when the two catastrophes are considered, the flooding here in the UK was reckoned to be partly due to cutbacks in maintenance of drains, gullies and small streams with lack of dredging the larger rivers. All those cutbacks in the small ways made the flooding very much worse than it otherwise may have been.I don't recall seeing any actual figures showing the amount of financial cutbacks relating to flooding here in the UK. However, seeing what's been cut back in Australia and the devastating fires it really does make me wonder how cutbacks of any kind can be made in the first place in these areas. It's not as though fires don't happen every year anyway so the risks of any cutbacks must have been known.
03-01-2020, 10:13 AM
28
Re: Australian Fires
Originally Posted by summer
->
I was surprised when they announced the military were being deployed to help.....I thought that would have happened ages ago...how bad does it need to be.
A State shall not, without the consent of the Parliament of the Commonwealth, raise or maintain any naval or military force, or impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to the Commonwealth, nor shall the Commonwealth impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.
The Commonwealth shall protect every State against invasion and, on the application of the Executive Government of the State, against domestic violence.
03-01-2020, 10:22 AM
29
Re: Australian Fires
Originally Posted by Bruce
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It has to be very bad. Remember the Australian Constitution was written to protect state rights otherwise there would have been no federation.The use of the military is governed by the Constitution. The State has to invite the Commonwealth to use troops and can only do so for specific purposes.
See the problem? It has never been tested in court but I suspect the founding fathers were concerned to ensure that an event like the Peterloo Massacre could not happen here. However it does severely limit the use of troops within Australia.
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