To ask you to pray for the thousands of people trapped on a beach by fires in Victoria?

[TheClaws]

There are 4000 people from the town of Mallacoota, Victoria, Australia, that is currently being destroyed by fire. They most likely won’t have homes to return to. They all have life jackets on ready to take shelter in the water as embers rain down upon them. Fire personnel have just - as I post - told them to get in the water. Can you imagine how they must feel?

Australia at the moment is burning across 4 states. Where I am it is 45c and the smell of smoke is heavy. It is a terrible summer for us.

bubbly the “well chin up always something to look forward to” message was equally as painful when directed to people who had lost everything only a few hours before

@TheClaws What makes you think an employer has to pay volunteer fairies? A small business can't sustain paying unproductive staff without repercussions to themselves and self employed fairies can't get paid if they don't work.

I wrote FIRIES .... spell check changed it to fairies.

I'm devastated for everyone in harms way and so fucking angry at fucking ScoMo. Also fuming at the media in the UK for not making this headline news, it bloody should be. I don't know how anyone in their right mind can deny climate change is real in the face of this devastation. I've been weeping for the country I grew up in, the bush I love and which my children will never know 💔

Unemployed volunteer Fire Fighters

From the twitter thread I posted earlier:

“Many of the volunteer firefighters are unemployed; their benefits have been suspended because, while they’re saving people and habitats and homes, they can’t apply for the requisite number of jobs per week the government expects them to to continue receiving benefits.”

I don’t know how true this is, but if accurate, is disgusting. Hopefully it’s just ‘clerical’ and they’ll get it sorted out.

I cannot believe the Australian bushfire haven't made it onto the BBC news homepage

Wha? The fires were all over my BBC homepage for several days – and are still on the homepage now. They've been bumped off top spot now by the US's assassination of an Iranian general, but are still on the page.

I keep seeing people claiming XYZ isn't being covered or being given due prominence, when I'm sitting here looking at a screen dominated by it. Is this about cookies creating info bubbles again? (I regularly clear cookies or don't allow them to be set for most sites.)

Awful. If I believed in God I'd be praying, as I don't I'll be trying my best to get movement on climate change policy. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive)

Unemployed volunteer Fire Fighters

From the twitter thread I posted earlier:

“Many of the volunteer firefighters are unemployed; their benefits have been suspended because, while they’re saving people and habitats and homes, they can’t apply for the requisite number of jobs per week the government expects them to to continue receiving benefits.”
I don’t know how true this is, but if accurate, is disgusting. Hopefully it’s just ‘clerical’ and they’ll get it sorted out

Id believe it. They try to cut people off for attending a dr appointment over their stupid job search meetings
or punish them for having reactions to medications by threatning to breach them their payment

I cannot believe the Australian bushfire haven't made it onto the BBC news homepage

I don't understand comments like these. It was the top two stories for pretty much all of yesterday and has been the top story on and off for days. Today it's still there on the front page, but has been knocked off the top spot by several stories about the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

I use the BBC news app and it's been on the top news on there but not the top news on the news website. I think we see different things according to our settings or what they think we're interested in because of cookies.

I’m listening to the news at 6 on R4. It’s the Australian bushfires, the us killing of the Iranian general and the vegan ruling.

It’s all so fucked up it’s terrifying.,

You select your own news. Look at Edit My News on the BBC. You can even add Australia Fires as a topic.

My heart aches for the people who are losing lives, loved ones, living in terror and uncertainty, the animals who are utterly innocent and hapless victims in this.

My blood fucking boils with that utter fucking tone deaf pillock who thinks people are so bloody stupid they're going to be pacified with, to paraphrase, 'well yeah, there's a few bloody bushfires, it's not great, but us Aussies, we're used it it now aye, we're hard as, and what about the cricket mate?!'

We went through the quakes. I can't even begin to imagine being in the paths of these fires. No comparison.

Does anyone know why the army isn't helping with fighting the fires? Why do volunteers have to do essential work?

Fighting fires isn't as simple as holding a hose. The volunteers have training and experience.

As I understand it the ADF are in the background. Refueling, feeding firies, doing logistics. The Navy are on the Mallacoota situation.

But not enough. The ADF are Commonwealth, the RFS is State.

This shouldn't fucking matter, except our dumb as fuck Prime Minister keeps saying this is a State problem.

Most of the States are burning. The fucking RAINFOREST has burned in Queensland and still he swans around pretending everything is fine.

Centrelink is Commonwealth. It could be used to distribute funds to the volunteers. They have numbers which could be used to allocate the funds.

Some private businesses ARE paying their volunteers while they are out. But the smaller ones just can't carry that load for very long.

We have the money. We will pull through. We are hard as fuck. But right now people need help. They need money, they need somewhere to stay, they need looking after. The Commonwealth Government has a responsibility to us as well as the State Governments and they are not fulfilling that responsibility.

We pool our resources for exactly this sort of reason. I am no fucking use in a fire. But what I do have is cash. I happily pay a great big wad of that in tax (as well as donations) and I want that money used NOW for THIS because these are my people and they need help. Right. Now.

I am not "anxious" or "frustrated", I am FURIOUS.

I will be donating as soon as collection in bank starts. So dreadful to have to go through this. Hope no more lives lost.

Does anyone know why the army isn't helping with fighting the fires? Why do volunteers have to do essential work?

As far as I'm aware the Australian Defence Force is helping. That's the army navy and airforce. There's 30,000 regulars. The UK has almost three times that with a landmass many times smaller.

Lots of countries have volunteer firefighters including Australia, Canada, and others. Pretty common in countries with a spread out population and a more bottom up community model. Some areas just can't afford a professional force, it's not federal money that pays for it.

@TrendingLater - in this part of the world the majority of firefighters are volunteers, it's a different system to that in the UK. They are trained firefighters, they know what they are doing and are not just people who rock up and offer to help.

This shouldn't fucking matter, except our dumb as fuck Prime Minister keeps saying this is a State problem.

And yet he refuses to call a meeting of COAG. Funny that.

It's truly awful. I hope people survive, particularly the firefighters, and that there will be relief that helps their communities rebuild. The damage tot he environment and the animals killed is so very sad.
I won't be praying though, I don't think that is going to be the thing that helps.

Well you know COAG is booked for March. It isn't as though there is any pressing reason to bring it forward!

I mean if only we had a big meeting place with an airport nearby and somewhere for people to stay at short notice?

I hope people remember this at the next election. I will be personally making it my business to see that they do.

Smoko won't get that far though. Dutton will be sharpening the knives. His silence is making me nervy. I wonder if it is too late to call Bishop? While I am not that keen on some of her politics, she at least doesn't appear to be a fuckwit.

Scotty is a sociopath. He can't human properly, let alone lead.

Did anyone else see the video of him walking away from the young pregnant woman, who'd lost her house, and who said she'd shake his hand only if he poured some resources into the RFS ? (After he'd forcibly picked up her hand).

Then some bloody Liberal honcho gets in between them, puts his fucking hands on this women, tries to give her a fucking kiss! and ScoMo just walks away.

I'll tell you where all my anger is going atm - to the people who voted him in in exchange for a miserly tax cut. Mind you, my friend who is in evac centre with her entire family, her animals, hoping the town she's in is defendable today - voted Nats. I just despair.

Climate change is the only issue in town. How on earth do we get people to vote in order to ameliorate it ? AU is already 1 degree above, and we've got 2.5yrs of shitshow nothing coming up in terms of solutions.

Fake news is everywhere - it's the Greenie's fault, they won't let us do land clearing, they won't let us reach our targets for controlled burns - the Greens are nowhere near power anywhere in the country, except maybe some inner city councils, and the burns did go ahead, but the window to get them done was radically reduced because of long term changes in the weather patterns ie it was too hot and too dry!!

Anyway, it was briefly cathartic last night to be at a Yungblud concert, and have the whole theatre shouting fuck you ScoMo, but it's hardly going to get us anywhere.

Good news story (well...good activism news story)

twitter.com/emmadavidsonACT/status/1213037266634850304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1213037266634850304&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Faustralia-news%2Flive%2F2020%2Fjan%2F04%2Faustralia-nsw-fires-live-updates-victoria-bushfires-rfs-cfa-road-closures-near-sydney-melbourne-latest-news

I mean if only we had a big meeting place with an airport nearby and somewhere for people to stay at short notice?

I know right, if only someone had had the foresight to build something like that.

Smoko won't get that far though. Dutton will be sharpening the knives. His silence is making me nervy. I wonder if it is too late to call Bishop? While I am not that keen on some of her politics, she at least doesn't appear to be a fuckwit.

The timing of this is something I reckon he’s counting on - enough time to the next Fed election that it won’t be fresh in people’s minds.

Ditto the NSW premier and her fuckwit of an Emergency Services minister. Is he still swanning around Europe with his family?

Do you reckon Dutton could get 2/3 of the party room under the new rules? God I hope not, he terrifies me.

I wonder if it is too late to call Bishop? While I am not that keen on some of her politics, she at least doesn't appear to be a fuckwit.

That this is the least bad option sums it all up doesn’t it?

wonder if it is too late to call Bishop

I would take the cold-hearted shill for asbestos any day over Dutton. She's competent, at least. She would, without a doubt, be handling the optics of this 100% better than Scotty.