Fire up

Abbott prefers to put out fires than prevent them!

The media coverage of him as a fire fighter are opportunistic as Greg Sturges writes in a letter to The Age today. 'Abbott will do anything to advance himself. How cynical'. It is hardly a coincidence that the media pack are present when Tony takes on the fires but the same pack fails to question him as to the cause of extreme weather related events and increased fire intensity and frequency. Or is the National Party Leader's comments that there has always been 'hot and cold' in Australia, indicative of a Coalition Government's response to climate change.

 

And it takes Monbiot (The Guardian) to call it as it is and to identify that in Australia climate change 'clashes with the myth of a land where progress is limited only by the rate at which resources can be extracted'. Abbott's response he says is limited to "Our thoughts are with the people and the communities across the country who are impacted by the bushfires." 'Quite right too' says Monbiot, 'but it's time his thoughts also extended to the question of why this is happening and how Australian politicians should respond. He says he's currently on standby with his local fire brigade,  but as his opposition to effective action on climate change is likely to contribute to even more extreme events in the future, this looks like the most cynical kind of stunt politics'.