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Comment by genidoi | Hacker News Reader

Aussie here. Our Prime Minister just hopped over to Hawaii[0] whilst bushfires[1] just an hour's drive away from Sydney[2] are toxifying the air to the point of being declared a public health emergency[3]... barely two weeks into bushfire season, with the most intense fires around late Jan/early Feb.

To top it all off, the Government is refusing to grant the firefighters additional resources to actually contain the fires[5].

[0] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/prime-minister-scott-mo...

[1] https://myfirewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au/

[2] https://twitter.com/healthy_climate/status/12042163739597250...

[3] https://www.9news.com.au/world/nsw-news-sydney-bushfire-smok...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/10/sydne...

[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/australia-bushfires-c...

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How is the government response (or lack off) affecting the debate around climate change in Australia? If I understand correctly, the current Australian government does not believe in human caused climate change but still enjoys domestic support from voters. Is that changing?

We had a similar, less serious event in Sweden last year during an extraordinary summer with a lot of forest fires, during an election year. The forest fires did not seem to change voters' mind much on the issue, unfortunately. Then again, we allocated a lot more resources than usual to fight the fires, even asking other countries for help.

> How is the government response (or lack off) affecting the debate around climate change in Australia?

Denial of resources thanks to denial of debate in the parliament.

> If I understand correctly, the current Australian government does not believe in human caused climate change but still enjoys domestic support from voters. Is that changing?

Not really. The governments strategy is currently to isolate and intimidate the concerned (scare campaigns, proposal of laws to outlaw "environmental protest terrorism"), whilst repeatedly telling the rest of the country: "we're fine", "we're doing our bit", "the problem doesn't exist" and "we can't survive without coal".

To expand on the parent's latter, said PM told kids, during the school climate strike, to stay in school and stop worrying about climate change. This is among many other statements over the course of his tenure:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-warns-again...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/26/scott-mo...

I don't really have anything besdies my biased anecdata with which to go by, but I think those who vote for the current incumbant largely don't really register climate change as a point of concern for them. It doesn't directly affect them in any noticeable way in their day-to-day lives, so they just keep on prioritising other things that do. Climate change, for them, is simply not an election-deciding issue. Taxes, jobs & growth, investment tax laws potentially impacting their investment returns, etc. register on their radar far more.

Also, both major parties here (in particular the conservatives) are beholden to the incredibly powerful mining lobby. The current PM held up a piece of coal in parliament as a prop and told the opposition not to be scared of it, for example. We did once actually have a functional carbon tax, but it got completely destroyed once the party that brought it in lost, in no small part due to the major offensive brought on by the mining lobby that secured their defeat.

There's an incredible political incentive to minimise any links to climate change, and to not do anything that impacts the mining industry's profit margins. I don't really hold any hopes that we'll see structural change in either the political sphere. Additionally, it's my opinion that given Australia's incredible run of prosperity in so many ways, many (most?) voters here have become very insular, selfish and self-serving in their attitudes, and ignore externalised/delayed-impact issues such as climate change in a large way.

Not to mention pushing his “religious freedom” bullshit legislation and while people’s homes, wildlife and infrastructure are still burning.

The people who are voting don't care about debate on the internet, so theres no point in posting here. Also brigading is pretty regular on the internet, so if you are reading this you are lucky enough to have seen it on the way to it being voted down to oblivion. So you are only going to see one sided posts, and the people who can make a difference don't see them anyway.

This very issue lead to massive inaccuracies in polling in the last election - resulting in a belief that a left facing change was going to occur and instead a massive majority the other way resulted.

Just as a matter of accuracy, I don't know if I'd call it a massive majority.

You're right in that the polls got it wrong, and everyone (including arguably the current government) thought the conservatives were done for.

But the end results, iirc, were 77 seats for the conservatives, 68 seats labor. A one seat gain from the previous election for the conservatives and a one seat loss for labor, with a total swing of just over 1% in the two party preferred vote.

For context, a party needs 76 seats to form government.

I feel it's more accurate to say our country remains quite polarised.

Rupert Murdoch polished his skills in the Oz before moving to the UK and US. No surprised that a similar style of polarization exists down under as in other parts of the Anglosphere.

I see what you mean about the bushfires causing toxic air: https://www.windy.com/-CO-concentration-cosc?cosc,-6.461,135...

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