Watching the news I'm cyring my eyes out.
Victorians - our hearts are with you.
For the towns wiped out and the people dead, the farm animals, pets and native animals dead, the volunteer firefighters, to those who have the task of finding the bodies, to the family members and friends left behind. We are thinking of you.
To help, donate to the red cross:
http://www.redcross.org.au/default.asp
1 year ago
Posts
This is what has pissed me off so much about the Rudd administration. We're facing climate change, drought, rising temperatures -- all on a continent already the driest of any inhabited continent in the world.
ReplyDeleteThere's only going to be more of this kind of thing in years to come. Two years ago I was on holiday in NZ during the last lot of Victorian wildfires. The pall of smoke actually hazed the air over NZ's North Island. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
So it seems to me that as Paramount Leader, your first goddam priority would be putting the infrastructure in place to do something about this. Alternate power sources and systems. Water plans. Desalination? Perhaps even that. Money to rural regions for better fire prevention and control. Money, even, to relocate some communities which are clearly going to become unviable. There's a vast list of things that could, and should be done.
Instead we get a man who worries about us drinking five beers in one sitting. Or looking at naughty pictures on the Internet. Or being unaware of cents-per-litre variations in petrol costs from one station to the next.
I know... it was Rudd or another three years of Deputy Howard. But still. I'm looking at this disaster, and I'm seeing the future, and I really, really want someone in the Big Chair who is going to actually do something useful.
A truly terrible weekend - horror down in Vic - bad news up North.
ReplyDeleteI know this is hard but maybe now this is what will help to get the government to look to the future like Flinthart says. My wife feels so helpless as she is so far away and the only thing she can do is donate to try and help.
ReplyDeleteI have acquaintances in a place called Yarra Glen who barely escaped one of the fires. Even after seeing video -- and living in a fire-prone region -- I can't comprehend the horror in Victoria.
ReplyDeleteFlint: I know, I know, but the wheels of government move very bloody slowly (speaking as one employed by the govt). There are also issues between federal and state responsibilities and jurisdictions.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to make any excuses because climate change should be a priority, but change in government is sometimes like pushing a boulder up and hill with your nose.
First there has to be a committee to decide to do something, then the committee itself (over several months, even years), then community consultation and expert opinion, then more committee work, then a draft proposal and then the whole thing has to be passed through parliament.
Dictatorship of the Flintheart anyone?!
Lerm: Truely the floods and fires.
Stu: Donate is all any of us not there can do...
Scrib: Yarra Glen is (or was) beautiful.