traverselife: Why was Australia so underprepared for the bushfires?

Friday 10 January 2020

Why was Australia so underprepared for the bushfires?

Australia's media ownership

Although there have been some changes to Australia's media landscape since 2016, it's helpful to get an understanding about how we ended up critically underprepared for the current fires.

Market research firm IBISWorld noted in June 2016 that:

The industry’s four largest players, News Australia, Fairfax Media, Seven West Media and APN News and Media, are estimated to account for over 90% of industry revenue in 2015-16. The Australian media landscape is one of the most concentrated in the world. An extremely small number of firms, most notably News Australia and Fairfax Media, publish content that reaches the large majority of Australians.

TV and radio

A June 2016 report on Australian free-to-air TV broadcasting by market research firm IBISWorld said:

The industry displays a high market share concentration … Australian media and broadcasting industries are highly concentrated in comparison with the rest of the world.

News Corp owns controlling stakes in Foxtel – which has a monopoly in the pay TV market – and Sky News, which is carried by Foxtel.

Tragically for Australia, we're now experiencing the outcome the our lack of diversity in mainstream media.

Few articles alerted readers to the advice which was ignored, recommendations obstructed, & lack of preventative action taken, or about the impact of defunding research and gutting the public service.

Australian mainstream news media has been described as a political propaganda entity
The dominant narrative is that the Coalition or LNP (the Liberals & Nationals combined) are the only party worthy of our vote.
(NOTE: Australian Liberals are US conservatives & UK Tories)

It sounds unreal to say that News Corp is not a media organisation. It sounds outré to say that it is instead a political propaganda entity of a kind perhaps not seen since the 19^th century, one that has climbed to its pedestal through regulatory capture, governmental favours and menace

These fires are NOT normal but you wouldn't know that if you only see headlines in the dominant msm.

These fires were predicted, but you wouldn't know that if your media diet doesn't include Independent Media.
New Scientist:

In 2008, a report commissioned by the Australian government predicted that from about 2020, global warming would cause Australia’s fire seasons to start earlier, end later and be more intense. “We knew this was going to happen”.

Yet, despite this and the 2003 Report "A Nation Charred: Report on the inquiry into bushfires"

"the Australian government has acted almost as if nothing unusual is happening. In November, deputy prime minister Michael McCormack told ABC Radio that “we’ve had fires in Australia since time began”. He dismissed the role of climate change in the current fires as the “ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies”.

Meanwhile the Guardian reports:

“We know it’s getting drier, we know it’s getting ... er, you know, situations in parts are getting very warm,” McCormack said, before indicating the government was taking sensible action on climate change – which was the kind of action that didn’t inconvenience anyone, and particularly not the coal industry.

The deputy prime minister also thought /climate protestors in Melbourne, were getting “way too much publicity; they crave for that, they yearn for that”. These people, he asserted, were “inner-city raving lunatics”.

Is the scale of the bushfires in Australia related to government policy?
For some of the government decisions, obstruction and inaction which have had an impact on the current devastation see this thread collated by Kara Schlegl.

For years, experts have repeatedly warned federal governments about the impacts of climate change denial, deforestation, urbanisation, and the impending bushfires.

Yet the government was reluctant to even support the most basic of preventative measures - and the murdoch media encouraged Australians to vote for them with a devastatingly effective "kill bill" campaign.

Breaking news
Finance manager resigns over NewsCorp dangerous and damaging misinformation

"I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies. The reporting I have witnessed in The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun is not only irresponsible, but dangerous and damaging to our communities and beautiful planet that needs us more than ever to acknowledge the destruction we have caused and start doing something about it."