Just like Ash Wednesday, Australia should stick together through the bushfire crisis

We owe it to those who have perished in the bushfires to put partisan swiping aside as Australia faces one of its greatest challenges in years, writes The Weekly Times.

Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser in June 1976. Photo: Graeme Thomson

ASK any Australian of a certain vintage and they’ll be able to tell you where they were during the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires.

What they probably don’t recall is the fires that swept through Victoria and South Australia — killing 75 and injuring more than 2600 — occurred smack bang in the middle of the 1983 election campaign.

Newly-minted Opposition Leader Bob Hawke launched Labor’s campaign on February 16, hot on the heels of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition launch the night before. The campaign was swiftly put on hold, if only for a day or two. Both leaders were astute enough not to politicise the fires, opting for sombre, unceremonious visits to the fire-ravaged Adelaide Hills, Macedon Ranges and Western District. That’s not to say the worst of human nature wasn’t on display in 1983; there were cases of arson, looting and rubbernecking, just as there’s likely to be in 2020.

What has changed though, for better or worse, is the speed of communication.

In 1983, those with an opinion on the fires had to apply both time and money to airing their viewpoint. A stamp on a letter to the editor, a potentially long wait on the telephone to talkback radio.

Anonymous, valueless opinion on the 2019-20 bushfires now fills up Facebook and other social media.

Climate change may well be a contributing factor to these fires. So too reduction of fuel loads. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, as those on the left and right of the political divide have us believe.

Fraser and Hawke spoke about Australians rallying together in the wake of Ash Wednesday. It’s a point worth remembering a generation on.