Think how many Australian lives, homes and forests could have been saved if Scotty From Marketing had done this in September-October 2019

Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison literally spent months denying the widespread mega fires were something that as a nation and as a people we had never experienced before.

He stubbornly and callously ignored the mounting death toll, the loss of so many homes and businesses, the environmental devastation, the crushing fatigue of volunteer firefighters, because he wanted to stay on message - coal is king and climate change is something 'greenies' use to scare the kids.

It wasn't until bushfire victims and firefighters began to get right in his face, when he realised that he might lose that lucrative prime ministerial paypacket, that he finally began to provide a decent level of federal assistance.

It's just a pity that this below is over four months too late for most of New South Wales from the Great Dividing Range to the Pacific Ocean.

We’re putting more Defence Force boots on the ground, more planes in the sky, more ships to sea, and more trucks to roll in to support the bushfire fighting effort and recovery as part of our co-ordinated response to these terrible #bushfires pic.twitter.com/UiOeYB2jnv

— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) January 4, 2020

The Morrison Coalition Government has decided that the Australian Parliament will only sit for 72 days in 2020

In 2020 the Parliament of Australia will only sit for 72 out of the 365 days in the year.

A full-sized calendar can be downloaded here.

Parliament comes back from its 61 day annual recess on 4 February 2020 and both the Senate and the House of Representatives sit for 11 days that month, followed by 8 days in March, 7 days in May, 11 days in June, 7 days in August, 8 days in September, 8 days in October, 9 days in November and 3 days in December.

Senate Estimates will add an additional 4 days to the parliamentary workload.

Neither the Senate nor the House will sit at all in April and July.

The current Parliament has 132 bills to consider as a legacy of the very few days - 49 in all -  it sat in 2019.

In an increasingly complex world one wonders just how long federal governments can indulge in such limited calendars and democracy still function.

One bushfire refugee's perspective

EchoNetDaily, 2 January 2020:

Fire fighters battling flames at Woombah, Iluka Road in November 2019. Photo Ewan Willis

As one of many bushfire refugees in Australia and beyond this year, I was faced with that classic question – what do I take and what can be left behind? A houseful of stuff and a small car are very different sizes, but when time is short, it’s amazing how it sharpens the mind, and the Tetris skills.

Turns out, not much is really necessary, or even desirable when it comes down to it. Being human, quite a few sentimental things of no practical use during an apocalypse found their way into the car. A few books. Also lots of ones and zeroes on hard drives of various sizes. Pretty much everything else was excess to requirements.

This is something more of us are learning as we move into this new reality, which has been predicted for some time, but not many expected would arrive so soon.

But what should we call this over-cooked era? Anthropocene has been suggested (or Anthrocene, as Nick Cave prefers) – the age when humans are the main drivers of everything that happens. Then there’s the under-sevens favourite, Plasticene. You only have to walk along a beach anywhere in the world and see the colourful detritus of our species to understand that one.

For me though, the one that takes the cake (a bombe Alaska, naturally) is the Pyrocene, or the age of fire. That’s what international fire expert Stephen J Pyne calls this era we’re living in, and after 29 books on the subject including Fire: a Brief History, he should know.

Burning stuff (especially fossil fuels) got our civilisation cooking with gas, made a lot of people rich, and now it seems everything else has to burn as a consequence......

The words of an Australian prime minister who still hasn't grasped the reality of climate change

As Australia literally burned from the mountains to the sea*, with thousands fleeing the flames after being told to evacuate ahead of extreme fire conditions expected on the east coast for Saturday, 4 January 2020 .

This was Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison, speaking at a press conference on the afternoon of 2 January 2020:

“Let me be clear to the Australian people, our emissions reductions policies will both protect our environment and seek to reduce the risk and hazards we are seeing today. At the same time, it will seek to ensure the viability of people’s jobs and livelihoods, all around the country. 

“What we will do is ensure our policies remain sensible, that they don’t move towards either extreme, and stay focused on what Australians need for a vibrant and viable economy, as well as a vibrant and sustainable environment.”


NOTE

* According to Canadian field geophysicist and disaster researcher, Mika McKinnon, by Friday 2 January 2020 the combined size of burned areas across Australia was getting close to 40,000 sq km or 10 million acres - roughly the size of Switzerland. While the smoke plume was 5.5 million sq km or 1.3 billion acres - half the size of Europe.

Headlines of the Week

The start of 2010......

"NSW bushfires destroy dozens of properties on South Coast, ABC understands" [ABC News online, 1 January 2020]

"Supercell bushfire thunderstorms and other deadly fires that spin" [Journalist Kate Doyle, writing in ABC News online, 1 January 2020]

And two I missed from last year......

"We Are A Burning Nation Led By Cowards" [National Affairs Editor Hugh Rimminington writing on 10 Daily, 19 November 2019]

"Scott Morrison, the flim-flam man who rode the Peter Principle all the way to the Lodge" [Leo D'Angelo Fisher in a blog of that name, 2 October 2019]

Tweets of the Week

What, like, "on the other hand, it's ONLY 4.6 million hectares of Australia that are burning". A rare editorial engagement: go fuck yourself https://t.co/wcIaU7q2eQ

— Laura Tingle (@latingle) December 31, 2019

Do Australia’s politicians feel that children should be huddled in cars fearing for their lives at all times?

It’s 2020. The time to act on climate is now.⁣
⁣#ExtinctionRebellion #auspol pic.twitter.com/wBczdwp0lk

— Extinction Rebellion Australia (@XRebellionAus) December 31, 2019

How fabulous! Scott Morrison the most reviled man in Australia was forced to flee by car from #Cobargo due to the force of anger from #bushfirecrisis affected residents Whoever thought it was a good idea for PM to go out in public thought wrong

— SeditiousSarah💧VictoriousVictorian 🌱 (@WhistlingWhist) January 2, 2020

An angry protester has told Scott Morrison he should be "ashamed of himself" and that he's "left the country to burn" during a tour of the burnt out town of Cobargo late this afternoon. #auspol #NSWbushfires

— Victoria Pengilley (@vicpengilley) January 2, 2020

Disaster tourists Scott and Jenny Morrison have been booed out of Cobargo this afternoon.

This. Is. The. Australia. I. LOVE! #WeAreAllCobargo#cobargo#AusPol#ScottMorrison

— Susie (@TheSusieTweets) January 2, 2020

Yes, just saw a snippet on ABC24 news.
Morrison was snarky when asked about it and Jenny looked rattled. #Cobargo #WeAreAllCobargo#NSWbushfires

— Susie (@TheSusieTweets) January 2, 2020

YES just saw #Morrison having abuse hurled at him, victims venting at him, called him an idiot, he had to be hurried back to the car! #deserved #auspol
Also @The_Nationals copped an absolute bollocking!@MadFckingWitch @slpng_giants_oz

— 💧The Angry Goddess (@Bishop64) January 2, 2020

Weather conditions expected to worsen on Saturday 4 January 2020 as south-eastern Australia once again gears for widespread severe fire danger

A total of 18 people have died so far in Australia's 2019-20 bushfire season and, sadly this number may yet rise.

Tomorrow, Saturday 4 January 2020 is expected to see the same fire conditions as those experienced on 31 December 2019, when parts of the NSW South Coast and East Gippsland in Victoria burned to the sea and at least 8 lives were lost.

IMAGE: news.com.au, 1 January 2020

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons stated on Wednesday:

“We’re expecting widespread severe fire dangers dominated by very hot conditions, up into the 40s, dry air coming out of the centre of Australia and westerly winds that will dominate.”

Fortunately for the NSW Northern Rivers region it is not expected that Saturday's heatwave conditions will affect us.

With the Australian Bureau of Meteorology predicting daytime temperatures from 29°C at Yamba to 33°C at Lismore.

In other news:

The Australian Defence Force scaled up its assistance on New Year’s Day with a Black Hawk helicopter rescuing three people from the New South Wales town of Moruya while another Black Hawk evacuated at least one person from Mallacoota in Victoria. 

But a decision is yet to be taken on whether the military will be needed for large-scale evacuations from Mallacoota and other towns ringed by fire, amid forecasts that conditions will worsen on Saturday.


UPDATE

Naval evacuation of civilians going ahead with reports up to 1,000 Victorian bushfire refugees expected to board HMAS Choules and MV Sycamore by early morning on 3 January 2020.