The politics don't matter.
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There is no point in underplayng this summer. If we do, we risk the tragedy of it revisiting us over and over.
It seems hard to believe that Black Saturday was more than ten years ago and as a nation there are still so many lessons to be learnt.
Ash Wednesday is now 37 years ago and yet the lessons from that catastrophic loss of life were slow in implementation and even weaker in their indelibility in our collective memory.
Time has served the softening of memory and advance of self-interest, not the potency of resolve to build a better and safer country
If the fire chiefs and people on the ground are anything to go by, and their voices count, things are getting worse.
Legions of meteorologists and scientists have backed them up with the reason; our summers are getting more dangerous
So all the preparation in the world, better training, better building, more staff or aircraft, a nationally coordinated response or whether risk reduction is even feasible have to be framed from this baseline.
This is our future. Our response and action need to be commensurate.