Opinion
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As mass shootings in the US are "not the time" to discuss gun control, an Australian November laid to waste by catastrophic bushfires apparently "isn't the time" to talk about climate change.
But it seems fine to say we need more burning in forests.
On Monday NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro claimed "it is an absolute disgrace to be talking about climate change when we have lost lives and assets".
Even when people are talking about it everywhere, and when when scientists have been warning this would happen.
Within days Barilaro, a long-term fan of coal power and opponent of wind farms, was talking about the need for more hazard reduction burning. Lives were still at risk.
It's also OK, it seems, for the Murdoch press's shrieking columnists to predictably blame the Greens, and their "influence on Government policy" for the inferno.
While lives and assets are being lost.
For their part, the Greens had Senator Jordon Steele-John making a fool of himself by accusing the Morrison Government of being "no better than a bunch of arsonists". His credibility's shot.
In NSW, we have an actual Environment Minister, but that didn't stop small-time autocrats in the PR section of the Department of Industry, Planning and Environment, deciding who can say what.
"For those attending AdaptNSW today, Public Affairs has issued advice not to discuss the link between climate change and bushfires," DIPE reps were told. AdaptNSW was a climate change conference.
Since April, a group of 23 former emergency chiefs, including former NSW Fire & Rescue commissioner Greg Mullins, had been trying to speak to the Prime Minister about the looming fire threat and the need for firefighting aircraft from overseas.
No meeting, no dice. Their group is called Emergency Leaders for Climate Action.
A Sydney paper carried a prominent story about Seven Group chairman Kerry Stokes, who had an opinion. "I don't think that's [climate change] the issue, is it?" Stokes said. "First of all, you've got to have controlled burning."
Stokes, a climate scientist? Perhaps not. An investor with a growing oil and gas portfolio? Certainly.
Cue Barnaby Joyce, who was pilloried for saying two people who died in the Wytaliba fire probably voted Green. Cue outrage. But read Joyce's words carefully, and you may find good advice.
"I acknowledge that the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green party, so I am not going to start attacking them. That's the last thing I want to do," Joyce said.
"What I wanted to concentrate on, is the policies that we can mitigate these tragedies happening again in the future."
Fair enough. People are upset; they want to talk about climate change, and hazard reduction. They are already.
It's a time for open discussion - with less politics, more honesty, more respect.