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Archives for March 2022

Josh’s Jobless Jargon

March 31, 2022 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Josh Frydenberg is spruiking the coalition’s accomplishments claiming, “Our Govt’s economic plan to create more jobs is working”. However, his statistics based on these claims crumble under scrutiny.

In essence, there are five claims he tweeted recently.

  • Unemployment has dropped to 4% in Feb,
  • 77k jobs created
  • The participation rate is at a record high
  • Female unemployment is at a 48 yr low of 3.8%
  • 375k more Aussies in work than pre-COVID

 

Real Unemployment

Despite an attitude of incredulity at the idea that we have such a trim level of unemployment, Josh boasted of unemployment being “the equal lowest in 48 years”. The government is very proud of its apparent economic credentials. So are we to believe that unemployment is the lowest in years with, ascending rental rates and the cost of living, escalating petrol prices, but for obvious reasons wages are stagnating? ABS reported seasonally adjusted unemployment approaching this figure, last in August 2008 (4.1%) and February 2008 (4.0%). So 48 years ago Josh? My maths is not what it used to be.

So employment is better now, only a couple of years out from cataclysmic bushfires that caused over $100B in damages amid a continuing pandemic and massive floods damages? We are also just out of a politically recognised “drop-in-real-GDP” recession but still in the per capita recession that began in mid-2018 (acknowledged in 2019) and showed no real prospect of improvement. Does anything about our Economy ring right?

 

ABS’s absent considerations

Cracks are showing when it comes to the ABS unemployment statistics, which the government is quoting ad nauseam. Social media is replete with scepticism. There is a lack of credibility in employment stats when one hour’s work represents employment. It is not one hour a week; as they review the previous three weeks from your reference week. Go read my June 2020 article titled “Unemployment by COVID exploded” under the subheading “6.2%? Really?” for the explanation.

 

The issue is not just the one-hour criteria. It is the zero-hours criteria that should also concern you. People in the Gig economy who have been given zero hours and zero pay should not be considered employed. Yet that is precisely what ABS does for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a measure of domestic internal unemployment. The ABS states: “The term ‘labour force’, as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the international standards, is associated with a particular approach to the measurement of employment and unemployment.”

 

International or Domestic terminal

ABS follows the ILO methodology measures, for international comparative purposes. The methodology was never designed to measure the domestically internal unemployment of any country, because it excludes too many people. The integrity of a domestic measure of unemployment has to be questioned if, for example, it discounts the numbers of people just because they work in the Gig economy under zero-hour contracts. Gig workers are still counted as employed by the ABS even when given zero hours and zero pay.

 

Every other measure of unemployment is far larger than the ABS’s measure. Still, people are largely unaware of the size of the alternate and more accurate measurements of domestic employment. It is not merely that adding the 130,800 people on zero-hours to the ABS measure of 563,300 unemployed – for international comparative purposes – would raise the 4.04% figure for global comparison to 694,100 or 4.98%. There are more extensive assessments. For example, the sheer number of JobSeeker stats has only recently dropped just below a million people.

 

At 949,937 people on Jobseeker in February – a number Josh Frydenberg has demonstrated familiarity with – it stretches credibility that 949K versus 563K are simply relegated to margins of error.

Beyond these numbers, there are the estimations made by Roy Morgan, which indicate that 1,227,000 people were unemployed in February 2022. ABS and Roy Morgan’s unemployment figures are estimates based on surveys. At the very least, Jobseeker is a hard count of people receiving a benefit. To review the history of all these numbers, post-recession, I have charted them in Fig 1.

Fig 1. various unemployment measures in Australia post-recession
Fig 1.  various unemployment measures in Australia post-recession

Crossing lines

My reasoning for choosing any measure requires accepting the reasonable postulate, that any internal measure of unemployment should minimally accept that people who have worked zero hours should be included as unemployed. ABS does account for zero-hours workers. So if the current ABS figure and zero-hours workers were added together over the last two years, the graph reveals an interesting anomaly. There are two periods in which that combination exceeds the value of JobSeeker, and that is why Jobseeker by itself – although a hard count – does not represent domestic unemployment numbers.

The combination of ABS unemployment plus Zero-hours numbers exceeded the Jobseeker numbers twice in the last two years. The first occurred in April 2020, and then again for the three months from August to October 2021. Now the first one, to be fair, is at the recession’s start, and it is reasonable to ascribe that to the chaos of the time and errors in measurements. I have previously pointed out how often ABS altered at random intervals their unemployment measures reflecting much uncertainty in my aforementioned June 2020 article. But a sustained series of measures over three months draws different conclusions in a calmer time.

 

It indicates the absolutely unemployed with not even an hour of work for each month exceeded the Jobseeker’s hard count. However, that anomaly doesn’t factor in all the other reasons ABS undercounts people as unemployed, such as:

  • exclusions for unpaid work in a family business, or paid busking or street vending;
  • exclusions of short-term foreign workers through the 12/16 rule;
  • exclusions of persons unable to take up immediate work;
  • hiding unemployment via the government PaTH program;

So what measurement methodology addresses these weaknesses and exclusions?

Answer: Roy Morgan’s employment and unemployment estimates!

Now the reasons for the gap between Jobseeker and Roy Morgan I previously explained in my article titled “Frydenberg’s maths problem”. So what does Roy Morgan show us regarding underemployment and unemployment? What does either ABS’s quarterly measure of Job vacancies or the Department of Employment’s monthly measure of internet Job vacancies tell us about the jobs available for folks looking for work?

 

The graph of those figures [Fig 2] shows the harsh reality of a paucity of job opportunities and a frightening level of underemployment and unemployment. But, unfortunately, this government has done little to rectify that plight. Frankly, when you consider their dismissal of the public service and their deliberate undermining of manufacturing, it has simply exacerbated the situation.

Fig 2. Under and unemployment in Australia 2013 - 2022 vs Job Vacancies
Fig 2. Under and unemployment in Australia 2013 – 2022 vs Job Vacancies

 

Solutions and reassessments

There are solutions to the unemployment crisis, such as a Federal Job Guarantee. However, there is a complete ideological unwillingness to implement such solutions because it would end wage stagnation. The private sector would have to compete with the government for workers by offering better wages and conditions.

 

So what does Roy Morgan say is the truth compared to Josh Frydenberg’s list of accomplishments with which we started?

  • Unemployment has risen to 8.5% in Feb an increase of 26,000 from January,
  • Employment fell by 163,000 to 13,216,000 in February, driven by a fall in part-time employment
  • The workforce dropped 137,000 in February
  • Female unemployment is also at 8.5% despite being a smaller proportion of the workforce [see Fig 3]
  • Employment is 344,000 higher than it was pre-COVID-19 (13,216,000 – 12,872,000).
Fig 3: Female Unemployment measure variations in Australia from 2019 to Feb 2022
Fig 3: Female Unemployment measure variations in Australia from 2019 to Feb 2022

 

The conclusion about Frydenberg’s claims leaves us with two options.  That the man delivering the budget for the whole of the Australian economy has either

  1. no idea what the actual state of the economy is, or
  2. is a _ _ _ _ (well, I don’t want to be the one to say it – these guys are litigious, and I can’t afford it.)

Filed Under: Employment, Politicians

Morrison’s feminine appeal

March 27, 2022 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

From THAT women’s network logo to a corseted perspective where he can only understand women through the lens of his wife or daughters; Scotty from Marketing can’t recognise the inequality, bias and dangers that women face.

Trying to defend himself, he ran the following list past Kymba Cahill during an intense interview on Perth Radio show Mix94.5. [See Fig 1.] Scott Morrison raised these points asserting that the coalition had made significant progress on:

  • women’s employment and unemployment,
  • Women in executive roles and gender pay equity,
  • domestic violence funding.

 

Fig 1: Extract from News article on Morrison's actions on behalf of women
Fig 1: Extract from News article on Morrison’s actions on behalf of women

Women’s Employment

Using unemployment figures from the ABS is a dubious exercise, as I have noted previously, but this will be the data to which Scott is referring [see Table 1]. According to ABS, Females employed in the workplace in Australia in Feb 2022 was 6,407,730 (Men were 6,964,2820). This left 256,378 of the female workforce unemployed. That is a 3.85% unemployment rate for women in the workforce. I will dispute this claim later.

In the meantime, the lack of inclusion of zero-hours workers (which the ABS calculates) in the unemployment percentages is a blatant misrepresentation. People with registered employees (usually in the Gig economy) offered zero hours of work in a month and zero dollars for pay, while considered “employed”, are not segregated by gender in the ABS stats. However, people in employment are segregated by gender. So calculating the ratio of women in the workforce to men at 47.9% in February 2022, provides a reasonable basis for extrapolation. Zero-hours workers for February 2022 were 130,000 people, and multiplying that by 47.9% for February gives you an estimate that 62,678 workers were likely female.

Adding zero-hours female workers back to ABS’s unemployment numbers means that 319,056 women (or 4.79% of the workforce) are without paid work. That means women in employment dropped to 6,345,053. Making the same relative month-by-month calculations over the last three years generates a female ratio that varied between 49.9% and 46.4%, resulting in the Fig 2 Graph.

Another consideration is that since our Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, claims our economy has recovered to pre-pandemic levels (i.e. 2019). Commencing with ABS stats from the beginning of 2019 will allow some trend analysis. Of course, other journalists have demonstrated Josh’s claims are fallacious propaganda, but let’s overlook that for now.

Fig 2: ABS's Female Employment estimates in Australia 2019 to Feb 2022
Fig 2: ABS’s Female Employment estimates in Australia 2019 to Feb 2022

Looking at the trends in the Graph for Full-time, part-time and workforce numbers for women, it is evident none of the categories has made a full recovery. Compared to February 2019, the ABS figures claim: 5.996 million women were employed and 314K unemployed. However, it is 375K, if you add back the female proportion of zero-hours “employed” estimated in Feb 2019. That would have reduced our wage-earning employed to 5.954 million. So Morrison seems correct that more females are employed.

Still, it should be apparent that his claiming credit is a misdirection. Over that same three years, the total workforce moved from 6.310 million to 6.664 million. The population of women over 15 went from 10.417 million to 10.687 million. Unless Morrison is claiming credit for population growth or women entering the workforce – both of which are rising at similar levels. Is a rising level of employment, therefore, something for which he can claim the credit? Significantly when they have not even risen to a level that an extrapolation of 2019 figures would predict? What legislative change has Morrison’s government passed that has even achieved this underwhelming rise in employment?

As for “the lowest level of unemployment” for women, the evidence for real domestic unemployment for women demonstrates otherwise. This is where I will review not just ABS data but also include zero-hours data, Jobseeker and Youth Allowance and Roy Morgan’s unemployment figures. These measures demonstrate that unemployment exists at around 8.5% for women. This was lower than current levels for all of the second half of 2019. However, just as zero-hours “employees” are not segregated into gender statistics, neither are Roy Morgan’s estimates. Roy Morgan’s methodology has more in common with the Jobseeker and Youth Allowance as a measure of unemployment. Accordingly, I have used their month-by-month ratio of men and women on both stats to extrapolate the proportion of Roy Morgan’s total estimates, likely female. The results in the following graph [see Fig 3] and accompanying sources and internal explanations demonstrate why Morrison’s claim is inaccurate. Please see my articles here and here if you want further explanations concerning this multi-data analysis.

Fig 3: Female Unemployment measure variations in Australia from 2019 to Feb 2022
Fig 3: Female Unemployment measure variations in Australia from 2019 to Feb 2022

More women on Boards and gender pay gaps.

I assume Morrison boasting of more women on Government boards doesn’t include former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate, who is still waiting on his apology. It should be noted that “more than 50%” of women on government boards is larger by a factor of 0.2%. In short, it is 50.2%. The history of that climb resembles a long and tortuous effort. Not unlike Morrison’s appointment of women to his cabinet – another point he raised.

This may be true for a tiny percentage of women who represent the country’s government executives. Still, many social and economic issues for women who are non-board members (i.e. the vast majority) remain unresolved. Women’s Agenda publishes a range of these issues, like sexual assault through to women’s career anxiety. As for Morrison’s claims about the gender pay gap, beyond some minor fluctuations, it has sat around 14% for the last three years. Taking credit for a recent 0.4% drop is hyperbole when you consider it depends:

1. entirely on what State and with whom you are employed,

2. and the changing state of employment and unemployment. [see Figs 2 & 3]

One doesn’t have to take a human’s claim that falling gender pay gaps are fallacious in a volatile employment economy with stagnating wages. Even internet bots are pointing out the disparity.

Domestic Violence funding

The Domestic Violence Package of $1.1 billion announced by the Minister for Women’s Safety, Anne Ruston’s media release from October 2021, is full of self-congratulatory praise for their “landmark” contribution to DV.

Keep in mind that the DV funding was not considered sterling before this point. Monash University’s assessment in 2020 was that previous funding arrangements for women were woefully inadequate. Although the subsequent $1.1 Billion in the following budget might improve on previous efforts, “it does not yet reflect the level of investment so desperately needed to address, interrupt and ultimately prevent what is a national crisis.” according to two Violence prevention experts. Other critics have noted it is hardly enough, and falls short of the need.

In truth, all this expenditure is a transparent effort to put a bandage on the gaping wound left in the wake of

  • Brittany Higgins’s allegations,
  • Grace Tame’s public condemnation of Morrison,
  • the former Liberal MP Julia Banks’s confession or Industry Minister Karen Andrews’ complaints,
  • Morrison’s disparagement of Christine Holgate,
  • the Jenkins review,
  • Gladys Berejiklian’s and other’s texts,
  • Coalition staffers masturbating over the desks of female MPs, and
  • the innumerable stories about the misogynistic predators in Parliament, such as Barnaby Joyce, Christian Porter and Andrew Laming.

But while that was a long sentence, no sentences of any length have been applied to any of the misogynistic male perpetrators responsible for these abuses.

Despite the massive protests by women over these issues, not even the Minister for Women, Marise Payne, showed solidarity by attending “March 4 Justice” at Parliament House. And I suspect we all recall Morrison’s bullet point based response in Parliament to that protest.

Assessment

So yes, Morrison has poured in more money into domestic violence, but it isn’t anywhere near enough to deal with the scope of the problem. Yes, employment has risen but so has unemployment amongst women. Yes, the ruling class women at the height of the government echelons have enjoyed more executive work. But, in contrast, the non-executive women (known as the vast majority or working-class) are still increasingly unemployed, poorly and unequally paid, compared to their male counterparts.

So if this is Morrison’s idea of “action” in response to women’s needs, dare I suggest his “action” is quite definably “small” and “inadequate” to meet the real needs of women in Australia?

 

Filed Under: Politicians, Women

Drought and flooding rains

March 11, 2022 by James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree Leave a Comment

Was Banjo Paterson’s 1889 poem “Clancy, of the Overflow”, acknowledging a country of flooding plains? In not, Dorothea Mackellar’s “Sunburnt country” was in her 1906 poem about “drought and flooding rains”. Floods have long been a dominant feature of the Australian landscape, so much so, that “100-year floods” have been featured in recent decades every half dozen years or so. The apparent expectation of a lead-in like this is it’s a conversation on climate change. But, seriously, so many scientists and meteorological experts have spoken of this ad nauseam (see the 6th IPCC report). There is not much this journalist can add to what’s already been said. The latest flooding on the Eastern coast of Australia speaks volumes. Ignoring the need to mitigate Climate change has only two protagonists.

  1. Attitudes to the Flood Crisis show the contempt with which Rural Australians are held by former Liberal Party president.
    Attitudes to the Flood Crisis show the contempt with which Rural Australians are held by former Liberal Party president.

    The most recalcitrant of ideologues in media and political circles who are bribed by corporate lobbying of fossil fuel interests or

  2. The psychologically stunted individuals are driven by a  Dunning-Kruger misperception of their intellectual incapacity.

So if you fall into one of those categories, I will not waste time addressing your issues.

Climate change has created two very typical states of environmental disasters in the Australian landscape. Fires and Floods! The rescue of Australians from either disaster has different primary responder workforces.

Fire Management

Fire Brigades in Australia, began in the NSW colony in 1820, consisting of soldiers trained to use fire fighting appliances. By 1836 the Australian Insurance Company established a Fire Brigade, manned by local volunteers with buckets, ladders and axes. By 1884 the Fire Brigades Act created the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. By 1910 that Act was extended across the NSW state. In 2011 that Fire Brigade became known as “Fire and Rescue NSW”. Nowadays, paid professional and volunteer fire fighting bodies are funded in every state. However, the NSW fire mitigation bodies suffered significant funding reductions in the years leading up to the 2019 fires. Gladys Berejiklian’s government instigated the cuts, but only the alternative media outlets covered this failure of oversight and management.

Flood Management

Flood management, on the other hand, had an even poorer history. European settlement in New South Wales recognised the risk from the flood hazards as far back as 1788. However, the 1810 Hawkesbury River flooding and 1867 floods of Pitt Town and Windsor, resulted in differing strategies by the colonial government. By the 1870s, volunteer ‘water brigades’ arose. This, in time, developed into the State Emergency Service (SES) in 1955. The only professionally paid body associated with flooding is the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. The under-resourced original SES had no mandate for Flood mitigation. It was not restructured till the emergence of the State Emergency Service Act 1989. Chas Keys, the Deputy Director-General, NSW State Emergency Service, wrote in a paper in 1999:

“Half a century ago, the management of Australia’s most serious natural hazard was very largely a matter of community self-help. Science was not brought to bear, there was little or no prior consideration of potential ways of handling flood problems, and the government was barely active except in after-the-fact relief endeavours.”

While Chas Keys claimed this had changed, recent events demonstrate effective real-time flood management still eludes the government and SES. The SES is still dominantly a volunteer organisation covering a wide range of emergency scenarios from fire, storms, floods, road crashes, as well as alpine, bush & abseiling search and rescue. There is training nowadays for all of these events, but it’s largely dependent on individual interest from the volunteer. At the end of 2018-19, NSW SES had a full-time equivalent workforce of 352 staff but 27 times as many volunteers.

Government reluctance

Locals noticing the lack of Government and Emergency support services in a crisis.
Locals notice the lack of Government and Emergency support services in a crisis.

The State and Federal Government’s response to cries for help by flood victims has been woeful. The Federal Government, in particular, has demonstrated a consistent reluctance to step up, in any emergency, whether that be a pandemic, economic recession, bushfires or floods.

The Liberal Party’s previous reputation of being notoriously marred by climate-denying recidivists manifests as a reluctance to admit the consequences of Climate Change. So there is a foreseeable reluctance to acknowledge the existence of the symptoms. This follows a consequential hesitancy to act quickly to mitigate a flood crisis. Hence the slow and reluctant response from the Federal Government to the current floods. Considering the American experience of harsh public criticism of George W Bush over Cyclone Katrina flooding, the even slower response by the Australian Government draws understandable outrage. As does the continued reluctance to spend emergency funding of around $4.7 billion sitting idle in the bank! While eventually the ADF was assigned to the task, the perception of their commitment to the flood victims was marred by the need to create photo ops and filmmaking. This only drew further enragement on social media.

Army not trained

ADF Film training unit because the defense department betrays their confident in their crisis response capabilities.
ADF Film training unit because the defence department betrays their confidence in their crisis response capabilities.

Beyond the SES, the Australian Army Reserves have been solicited to provide community aid during the 2010 and 2011 floods. ADF Reservists called upon to assist communities during a flood crisis is problematic, because, as David Littleproud claimed, ADF personnel “aren’t trained in the immediate response”. Still, Army Reservists are called upon more frequently to assist in fire, flood and pandemic situations as they did during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. But the reference to a lack of adequate training was implied by the ADF’s flood response in 2022. ADF emergency support was marred by a week-long delayed response and the apparent order to conduct photo ops and training films many saw as a priority above saving lives. The Defence Force’s defence of their filmmaking drew further enragement on social media, but few stopped to query why the defence force thought the training was needed.

SES not ready

The government’s crisis management should not rely on volunteers and reservists.
The government’s crisis management should not rely on volunteers and reservists.

The SES found themselves battered by a “natural disaster of unprecedented proportions” and subsequently demonstrated they were under-resourced and overwhelmed. The capitulation of government to reliance on volunteers to respond to natural disasters was admitted to by Premier Dominic Perrottet on Tuesday the 8th in a Press statement. Perrottet acknowledged people felt let down by emergency services, overwhelmed by the scope of the crisis.

If the Federal & State governments, SES and ADF are not up to the task required of them, for whatever reason, legitimate or otherwise, perhaps we need a more focussed body to deal with floods. Although, there is no dedicated, professionally paid specialist “Flood Brigade”, despite flooding being an interstate issue of significant frequency, resulting in large scale relocations, property damage, and even deaths.

Once in a Century?

The history emerging in the 21st century, complete with lives lost, began in the 2007 Hunter Valley/Maitland and Gippsland Floods. This was followed by the 2011 Queensland floods and again by Victorian Floods, till finally later that year, Gippsland again. A year later, in 2012, Eastern Australia and Gippsland suffered floods between February and March. 2013 saw Eastern Australia Floods in Queensland and NSW. While we got a break in 2014, 2015 saw Hunter Valley/Central Coast/Sydney Floods and South – East Queensland, in which 13 people in total died. Tasmanian Floods in 2016 only killed three, and one died in the Central West and Riverina Floods. After the Western Australian Floods of 2017, Cyclone Debbie caused flooding in Eastern Australia. Townsville floods in Queensland killed five people in 2019. Tropical Cyclone Damien in Karratha in 2020 caused flooding in NSW, but it was one of few floods where there were no deaths (although plentiful damage).

Such good luck wasn’t maintained the next year when widespread flash flooding across Gippsland in 2021 killed two people while 200 homes were evacuated in the Latrobe Valley. That flooding occurred only three months after widespread flooding in the Sydney basin, and the Mid North Coast of NSW had already killed three folks.

In 2022 Australia’s Eastern coast has been inundated with rain, and the current score – as of writing – has been 21 lives between Queensland and NSW. New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet described the extreme weather as a “one-in-a-one-thousand-year event“.

Shane the disaster tsar in charge of Emergency Disaster fund.
Shane the disaster tsar in charge of Emergency Disaster fund.

Describing these floods as the one-in-a-one-thousand-year event (or “one-in-500-year” as Morrison did in Lismore) is not only wholly delusional and contrary to every scientific flood report, but also contrary to the lived experience of Australians seeing floods occur year after year. For example, with extensive Brisbane floods increasing in frequency from 1974, four lives were lost, and some 8,000 householders were affected. From 2011 and on to 2022, the comparisons are startling, given all the flood mitigation work done in between.  As for Shane Stone, the disaster relief chief and head of the National Resilience and Recovery Agency blaming the victims for their choice of residency, that says much about Morrison’s hand-picked disaster tsar.

 

Politicians depicted this as a once in a century event, only to experience more in the coming years, stretching their credibility and the public’s resilience with each flood.

Who’s to blame?

Some elements of the government have been prepared to acknowledge how “unacceptable” emergency flood response has been. Others, especially in the Federal Government, are looking to direct blame elsewhere. Blaming the Bureau of Meteorology for an inaccurate forecast only gets you a day’s grace, not a whole week. These disasters have been consistently predicted. The Australian Rainfall and Runoff report: “A guide to flood estimation” notes on page 22:

“There is also mounting evidence that longer-term climate processes also have a major impact on flood risk.”

It goes on to describe La Nina events and interdecadal pacific oscillation, and after “investigating a range of sites in NSW”, it found floods were 1.8 larger than “normal”. (see the report page 22 for a more nuanced explanation of “normal”) Notably, Wilsons River flooding to Lismore in 2017 has no specific mention in the report, unlike the Hunter, Clarence and Woolomombi because most of the data relied upon only extends to 2015. While this report has some 2016 updates, its release in 2019 does not mean the fallout of 2017 mass flooding is included. It may be time for a revision in 2022. That said, making excuses for why we were not ready in the face of all this data – including all the reports preceding the 2022 IPCC report – is a little pathetic.

 

Alternative?

Seeking fully funded civil disaster response organisations
Seeking fully funded civil disaster response organisations

As the existing system doesn’t work and will become increasingly dysfunctional in the future, we need a complete regime change. Volunteers in Fire Brigade, SES, and Army Reservists (some of whom operate in a mix of either, some or all services) should continue as separate entities. Given that these disasters cross the State lines, funding should be federal at all levels. The temptation for tight budgets at State levels to be a reason to cut back on these services, should be dissuaded by shifting these to a federal responsibility. Professional crewed Fire Brigades and Flood Brigades bodies to manage mitigation, rescue, and recovery for these disasters need launching! It should transition all current State-based professionals. These brigades’ immediate responses should be based on predictive science measuring environmental changes and preparing for the worst.

To have these federally funded bodies respond to these emergencies far faster than this government and ADF have reacted to people in need in Lismore, Coraki, Girards Hill, Southgate, Mullumbimby, Picton and many others, we need one more change. We need a federal government that will not simply announce its intentions without any measurable, functional outcomes or run off overseas or hide from public scrutiny, but act promptly to produce results in infrastructure and finance in the towns that will preserve our communities. But, unfortunately, that government is not our current incumbent, whose leader only now, weeks after the start of the floods, while visiting Lismore, indicated an “intention” to declare a “State of Emergency”.

Filed Under: Environment

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