Bundarrah Days

Below is a Bundarrah Days post from December 2006. I've reposted it today because The Bracks Government and it's successor under John Brumby both lied to you. The Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party has the blood of more than 200 Victorians on its hands due to its mad flirtation with radical green policies on our public land and in our national parks and conservation reserves.



12/09/2006
They Lied To You

Contrast the tragic images from these fires with the beautiful pictures that accompanied this government’s expensive advertising campaign last year about a “new start for The Alpine National Park.”

A quick comparison will reveal the truth about their real commitment to the alpine environment.

Contrast the images of the country people desperately fighting to save their homes and properties with those of a few green bushwalkers enjoying a rare sortie into the Alpine National Park. (Or now substitute the image of people saving their homes with the faces of the dead Victorians who died last Saturday)

A quick comparison will show that those greens were enjoying a walk in a fools paradise.

Where are the spin doctors from the Victorian National Parks Association now? Where are the Charlie Sherwin’s and Phil Ingamells? Why have they nothing to say in the face of this tragedy? Could it be that they are nothing more than fair weather friends of the national parks they spend their lives lobbying for and excluding people from?

What were they doing when timber workers and mountain cattlemen were warning about the potential for a massive conflagration in the mountains? They were busy writing news releases telling you all not to worry and that more and more mismanaged national parks and conservation reserves were the salvation of your country.

They lied to you. Steve Bracks and John Thwaites lied to you. The Greens lied to you. That litany of lies was the match that set the flame burning in 2003 and again now.

When this is all over go and look at the tragic landscape, the scarred and exposed ground burnt right down to mineral soils and the sad never ending lines of dead trees crowding the valleys and lining the ridge tops.

And when you get over the feelings of awe at the power that caused this devastation know that it was unleashed by politics, by a religious fervour that demanded that the hand of man be excluded from the management of nature, by a lack of management resources for our massive network of national parks and by a government that took the easy option of excluding people from our parks and pointing to that exclusion as proof of their care for the environment.

The hell with all of them.

Meanwhile the biggest fires we have burning now are the Ovens complex and the Mt Darling-Cynthia fire to the east and south-east of Mt Howitt, covering the Wonnangatta area. Country Voice, now Push For The Bush, warned about this publicly way back in March this year and other bush users had been warning about it as well for years before that.

http://bundarrahdays.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/03/10/wo...

Now, last summer Steve Bracks said the following:

“In 2003, we had probably the closest we’ve ever had to the conditions of ‘39. We had a continual dry period for five years before, and we had temperatures approaching 40 degrees. We had strong northerly winds, and that was occurring regularly. It wasn’t as bad in terms of climatic conditions, but it was very close, and I think we were much better prepared.

The best indication has been the ‘39 Royal Commission report, which showed there was nothing that could be done at that point in time. With the existing laws, we could have prevented those fires occurring. They were the strongest fires Victoria has ever had, but the systems weren’t in place properly and appropriately to deal with them.”

So, Mr Bracks, with your existing laws you could have prevented the ‘39 fires? What a bloody shame you couldn’t prevent the 2006 fires. Your statement above condemns you for your ignorance and your blindness.