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The Byron Shire Echo Volume 35 #21 • November 4, 2020
When disaster strikes!
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ast year’s large-scale bushfires are now the subject of two major reports – the NSW government’s Inquiry was published in August, and now the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements dropped last week. As the new report notes, the fires late last year started in Australia’s hottest and driest year on record, and the ‘Forest Fire Danger Index was the highest since national records began’. Chair Mark Binskin writes, ‘Australia wide, there was significant community loss, devastation of wildlife and adverse health impacts. These losses were exacerbated by severe hailstorms, and floods in some areas that were just starting to recover from the fires. Then COVID-19 hit’. The commission’s long list of recommendations highlight a nation woefully ill prepared for such disasters. According to the report, such disasters will continue, and be exacerbated by climate change. From page 22: ‘Extreme weather has already become more frequent and intense because of climate change; further global warming over the next 20 to 30 years is inevitable. Globally, temperatures will continue to rise, and Australia will have more hot days and fewer cool days. Sea levels are also projected to continue to rise. Tropical cyclones are projected to decrease in number, but increase in intensity. Floods and bushfires are expected to become more frequent and more intense. Catastrophic fire conditions may render traditional bushfire prediction models and firefighting techniques less effective’. The plethora of recommendations in the 594-page report also provides an insight into how disconnected the states, territories and the feds are in general. Here’s a related fun fact – Queensland and NSW have different rail gauges. Given that, how can governments be expected to have the same standards when it comes to construction codes, air quality, air quality forecasting and communicating natural hazard risk information to households? All those are mentioned as ways to improve resilience. Creating simpler disaster recovery funding application processes is helpfully suggested, as well as establishing an authoritative disaster advisory body. Supply chain risks should be reviewed too, to ‘consider options to ensure supply of essential goods in times of natural disasters’. Yet disaster management should still be handled by the states and territories, the authors say. The feds can assist in providing ‘logistical support, help transport personnel and equipment during and after disasters, assist in large-scale evacuations, and provide food, water and medical assistance to emergency responders and communities’. If there’s one stand out recommendation that might make a difference it’s this – ‘Australian state, territory and local governments should explore further opportunities to leverage Indigenous land and fire management insights, in the development, planning and execution of public land management activities’. Hans Lovejoy, editor
Seats in the upright position: it’s the US election
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wo crunch Tuesdays for Australia and the US coming up: not just the Melbourne Cup, vital as that is for the nation’s well-being. November 4 (Tuesday in the US, Wednesday in Australia) will determine whether the United States of America regains its sanity, or embarks on another quadrennium of demented Trumpery. And frankly I am not optimistic. Four years ago I thought it absurd that enough Americans could be hauled from their caves to risk the almighty gamble; not only with their own immediate future but that of their compatriots, their allies, the entire world – that they were so fed up with the admittedly flawed, but still workable system that had served them for two-and-a-half centuries. I thought that simple self-interest would prevail, that the mindless slogans about building walls, draining swamps and throwing opponents into jail would be seen as the bluff and bluster it was, and that whatever the limits of Hillary Clinton’s appeal, she would at least be a safer pair of hands in troubled economic times than the mendacious wheeler-dealer. I thought that the revelations about his personal behaviour – his financial chicanery, his refusal to come clean about his taxes, and finally his boasts about grabbing pussies would surely make him unacceptable to a conservative republic. And if nothing else had ended the farce, I thought that he had offended, denigrated and outraged so many Americans – particularly women, blacks and Latinos – that he could never secure even the minority vote that would deliver him the electoral college. But of course I was wrong, as were the vast majority of other observers. And having been bitten once, I am shy to the point of despair, because having jumped off the cliff once and survived, there is no good reason for the lemmings not to repeat the plunge. Joe Biden may have many splendid qualities, but he is not an inspirational leader. And while simply being not Trump is a rational response to an unhinged braggadocio, it can hardly be regarded as a killer policy. From where I sit, admittedly many thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the Pacific, I do not detect
any real momentum for change. And the opinion polls are not helping. Because of the American system of voluntary voting, they are unreliable at the best of times, and in an election with unprecedented, massive early polling they are even less useful than normal.
Trump will certainly maintain his rage through rallies and mass demonstrations of civil disobedience Mungo MacCallum And even if they are right, so what? Under the electoral college system, a majority of votes is no guarantee of electing a president, as we saw in 2016 and in many earlier elections. If Trump can manoeuvre his way through the federal labyrinth, he will not worry about how small the numbers are when he arrives back in the White House. But at least it will all be over this week, won’t it? Well, probably not. Even if all the votes are counted promptly, and the results appear to be clear, Trump and his goon squad have foreshadowed delays, protests, appeals, whatever it takes to obstruct the wishes of the people. He may or may not enlist the aid of a Supreme Court dominated by his chosen reactionaries, but he will certainly maintain his rage through rallies; mass demonstrations of civil disobedience in the name of his sacred mission to keep the socialist radicals out of power. So any win for Joe Biden, whether large or small, will be considered illegitimate and contested, leaving America riven and tormented. But a win for Trump could be even more horrendous: re-elected, he could abandon any pretence of restraint and become an apocalyptic megalomaniac capable of unleashing Armageddon, just to show that he could. Whatever the results, there will be riots in the streets. Actually there already are. Of course, those are the worst possibilities. It is conceivable that even
if Trump refuses to concede defeat, those around him will blink and accept reality, and call the serious nurses in white coats to escort their former leader to a sedated retirement in a padded cell somewhere far from the madding crowds in Washington. The Republicans could revert to being the GOP, a conservative political organisation, rather than a war party fuelled by partisan bloodlust at the behest of a belligerent dictator. The evangelical right could admit the possibility of a separation of church and state. The warriors of the National Rifle Association could lay down their arms. Well, they could, but I’m not holding my breath. And come what may, America is not going to be great again any time soon. So perhaps it is time to turn to a somewhat less catastrophic election, the result in Queensland. Labor’s win was not a surprise, but securing a five per cent swing was certainly an unexpected bonus. There had been speculation that it would be very close – that Anastacia Palaszczuk may be forced back into minority government. Instead, regional Queensland held firm, and even the marginals in Townsville and Cairns could not be swayed. The premier was rewarded for her resolute defiance on the borders and freedom fighter Scott Morrison’s incursion into the sunshine state was clearly counterproductive. And the opposition LNP remained determinedly divided. 12 years after merging, the disunited party still hasn’t worked out what it represents, or whom. But the big story of the election was the collapse of the mad right. The One Nation vote plummeted, and Clive Palmer’s millions were spent in vain – not only did he not win a seat, but his scare campaign failed to dent Labor. For once, Queenslanders did not go bananas. Indeed, they showed exemplary judgment, endorsing incumbency and rejecting insanity. But this, unfortunately, will be the choice facing Americans this week. Donald J Trump enjoys the power of office, but for the handicap of senile dementia. We are about to find out which is more important, not just to a fractured electorate, but to the country which, for all its manifest faults, is still the last, best hope of the world. Now back to the Melbourne Cup.
Lauren Archer + Caring for your pets + Keeping your livestock healthy and productive + Mobile service CLINIC: 233 Gulgan Rd Between Mullum and Bruns just down the road from Uncle Toms
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