Part of the role of being a leader is... leading. The presence of top elected officials reassures the public that somebody is in charge and gives a shit about about what is happening.
When a leader goes off on vacation while some event happens, it puts off the impression that the government is ineffective and out of touch. It undermines the people on the ground who perhaps are doing something.
Also, in terms of "What would he have done for the fires", there are any number of things. The gravitas of having the man on top demanding action ensures that things happen quickly. As a trivial example, if the Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Brush Fire Extinguishing needs X, he'll get it when the truck or helicopter is available. When the PM needs it, the truck or helicopter is made available, period. Or it could be as simple as giving some sort of speech in your crisis windbreaker to rally the troops.
I don’t expect a CEO of a startup or corp to squash bugs or submit PRs, and similarly I don’t expect a PM to literally put fires out.
I do expect him to show leadership in times of crisis, bring unity, and just ‘be there’, especially when so many volunteers are fighting the fires and his countrymen are dying and losing their homes.
Admit that Australian coal extraction is unsustainable and then resign? Admittedly that does nothing for these fires, but without some change future ones are going to be worse.
Bringing that lump of coal into Parliament was a declaration that he wasn't going to care if Australia burnt to the ground so long as he got his share of the coal money.
Australia supplies a large fraction of the coal burned by Japan, China, Korea and India. Mentioning the CO2 emissions of Australia itself is missing the point completely.
Yes. I was contesting your point about the world making Australia transition. Right now they're buying more of it.
Now, you can try to run on a platform of banning those exports, but it's a tough sell because it affects the revenue of many voters, and Australia is a democracy. It's tough to vote away someone else's living.
Hillary Clinton bragged about putting coal miners out of a job (something she later admitted was stupid) and got an electoral defeat in West Virginia.
There are over 40 countries that contribute to at least 1% of global carbon. If each one of them takes this ridiculous stance, we won’t be easily able to reduce our carbon footprint.
Australia are introducing very harsh laws targeting climate / environmental activists. He could start by reversing those. E.g. Tasmania, up to 21 year jail term for trespass.
One of Australias most prominent features is its captured media. They will write just about anything about the climate and people who care about it. I've already seen it all, and that article is nothing spectacular when it comes to inventing boogeymen.
After all, the 40C+ temperatures obviously didn't start the fires.
Yes, yes they did. The extended dry period meant that fuel reduction efforts were hampered all year round. This caused the intensity and increased destruction of the fires.
It doesn't mean you're fighting the fires but it does mean you're staying informed, keeping people motivated through long hours and bad news and ready to make difficult decisions.
Yea I see people make arguments like this all the time. We frequently get news articles about leaders who aren’t in the capital legislating/leading despite the fact that these people never really escape their work even if they do travel.
The PM isn’t going to do much of anything at this point. The time for the PM to act is prior to the fires starting.
Is that the case this time? I was wondering why I hadn't seen the usual local (NZ) news coverage of fire fighters being sent across the Tasman. It was becoming a regular story for the last few summers.
