Labor, Coalition split over bushfires

A substantial split has emerged between Labor and the Coalition over how to handle natural disasters.

Liberal senators dissented with recommendations handed down by a committee scrutinising Scott Morrison’s response to the Black Summer fires. Picture: AAP

A substantial split has emerged between Labor and the Coalition over how to handle natural disasters after Liberal senators dissented with recommendations handed down by a committee scrutinising Scott Morrison’s response to the Black Summer fires.

A Senate committee exploring what lessons can be learned from the 2019/20 bushfire season 2019-20 has urged the government to roll out a number of measures, including building a sovereign firefighting fleet, reducing emissions and reversing cuts to the ABC to safeguard emergency broadcasting funding.

But Coalition senators have used their dissenting report to argue the interim report shows “needless partisanship” and accuses the committee of political score-settling.

“Sadly, the useful content in the report may be overshadowed by the political score-settling also contained within it,” the Coalition senators wrote in their response, tabled late on Wednesday.

“The report also does not adequately represent the current state of Australia’s fire preparation, response and recovery arrangements.”

The Coalition disagrees with the report that the Morrison government failed to heed warnings about the unprecedented nature of the bushfire threat during last Summer’s bushfire season.

It comes ahead of the landmark Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangement’s final recommendations, which will be handed down at the end of this month.

The Senate committee’s report recommended that Australia establish its own aerial firefighting capability, declaring the nation could no longer rely upon the decisions of other countries in the Northern Hemisphere as their fire seasons get longer and overlap with the Southern Hemisphere.

“It’s a critical decision in the national interest to make sure that we’ve got the capacity in Australia to snuff out fires early, before they become giant conflagrations that threaten communities, rural villages and townships,” they wrote.

But Coalition senators disagree with the proposal, declaring it is not the role of the Commonwealth government to determine the make-up of Australia’s aerial firefighting fleet.

“Those operational decisions are made by the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) which is under the authority of the fire chiefs from each State and Territory,” they wrote.

The Coalition senators also argue that disaster relief payments should be cut, based on advice from the Productivity Commission, declaring “there is a fine line between supporting Australians in crisis and inadvertently providing a disincentive for insurance and personal responsibility.”

Labor MP Susan Templeman, who lost her home to a bushfire in 2013, slammed the Coalition Senators for lecturing victims on personal responsibility.

“To say that it is a disincentive to insure just shows how out of touch these Liberal Senators are,” she said. “They don’t have a clue about what it’s like to suffer real hardship, and quite frankly it sounds like they just don’t care.”

The Coalition senators also disagree that the government should provide the ABC with discrete funding for its ABC emergency broadcast services, declaring the public broadcaster “enjoys more financial certainty than any other media organisation in the nation.”

“The ABC is adequately funded to provide the news coverage of emergencies that Australians expect,” they wrote.