Opinion: Australia, parched, baking, burning, is heading into an anxious Christmas and a joyless new year. The Prime Minister sends his best wishes but he wants to get on with talking about his real priorities.
Subtitles are supposed to help you make sense of what you're seeing but can't quite understand. Like a foreign language film. But if you saw the subtitles to Federal Parliament's final question time of 2019, the flow of text only made it more incomprehensible.The politicians talked about a great many things. But if you watched it on TV, the subtitles were about only one.
It's understandable that the bushfires weren't a feature of question time. Question time is customarily a clash over highly political differences, and neither party wanted to politicise fires. The fires are a national emergency. They are an invitation to national leadership. And, therefore, they are an opportunity for Morrison to look beyond the 30 to 40 per cent of voters who constitute his "base" to making common cause with the other 60 to 70 per cent of the community. Besides, even "quiet Australians" are increasingly anxious ones.
But then recognise that the weather and the larger climate systems appear to have entered a new phase, and new responses are required. Bring state premiers and local mayors together to consider the full range of problems and options with a view to beginning a comprehensive set of responses.From the most immediate needs of the exhausted firefighters and and the growing numbers of victims to the needs of the despairing food growers and the townships running dry.
On the first, there was overwhelming pressure on the government from its own side of politics over water. Abruptly, the Morrison government's Water Resources Minister, David Littleproud, announced a "snap" review of the water-sharing agreement.
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