The devastating bushfires across Australia in the summer of 2019/20 provide us with a clear message. Australians – people, businesses, and those who govern us – can no longer take our environment for granted. We have been willfully ignoring the signs so far but that must now stop.
There is much work to do in recovery. Rebuilding, refinancing, infrastructure maintenance, counselling – and the immediate and grisly task of dealing with the incomprehensible loss of animal life both native fauna and livestock. The Prime Minister today announced the allocation of $2 billion towards these efforts, to be managed by a bushfire recovery agency. As for revisiting climate policy though? No.
This is an egregious error, I think, based on the accuracy of climate modelling over the last 50 years. 2020 was even predicted as the time our climate chickens came home to roost. But climate policies are only one tranche in a complex system of policy levers that affect how we experience this new climatic world. In this post, I explore our relationship with land.
I graduated in one of the first cohorts in law at the University of Queensland to comprise 50% women. Despite experiencing overt sexism in some of my job interviews and tacit sexism during my working life, it still did not occur to me for a long time that I would be treated any differently from my male counterparts. I thought sexism to be exceptional. As a young woman, I believed all in the profession would be treated on merit.
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