Climate change should be key to royal commission: Greg Mullins.

The threat of climate change and a more harmonised approach to hazard reduction burns across Australia are set to be examined by the Federal Government's proposed natural disasters royal commission.

Greg Mullins - the threat of climate change.

The inquiry will also look at whether there should be national standards and reporting for natural disaster risk management, preparedness and resilience.

Listen to the discussion Radio National - “Climate change should be key to royal commission: Greg Mullins.”

We’ve had 57 bushfire inquiries. Another won’t tell us a single thing we don’t already know

As our country battles the most extensive fires of our lifetime, there are increasing calls for a royal commission into the states and territories’ preparedness and the Federal Government’s response to the disaster.

Good fire and land management needs to be done with
long-term perspective, not a short-term political focus. P

A royal commission has coercive powers beyond a government inquiry, and the need for one implies there are facts and evidence that would otherwise be “hidden” to an inquiry or review.

Research I’ve recently conducted with other fire experts has concluded there have been 57 formal public inquiries, reviews and royal commissions related to bushfires and fire management since 1939, most of which are listed here.

I have given expert evidence to at least seven of them, including the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.

That is more than one inquiry every two years in the past 80 years. Do we need yet another?

Read the story from The New Daily by Kevin Tolhurst - “We’ve had 57 bushfire inquiries. Another won’t tell us a single thing we don’t already know,”

We have already had countless bushfire inquiries. What good will it do to have another?

As our country battles the most extensive fires of our lifetime, there are increasing calls for a royal commission into the states and territories' preparedness and the Federal Government's response to the disaster.

Good fire and land management needs to be done
 with long-term perspective, not a short-term political focus.

A royal commission has coercive powers beyond a government inquiry, and the need for one implies there are facts and evidence that would otherwise be "hidden" to an inquiry or review.

Research I've recently conducted with other fire experts has concluded there have been 57 formal public inquiries, reviews and royal commissions related to bushfires and fire management since 1939, most of which are listed here.

I have given expert evidence to at least seven of them, including the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.

Read the ABC News story by Kevin Tolhurst - “We have already had countless bushfire inquiries. What good will it do to have another?”

Nation wants answers on climate change action

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given his strongest indication yet that he will initiate a royal commission on this season’s bushfires. It may well become one of the most important inquiries this nation has witnessed.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tours a farm
in fire-ravaged Sarsfield, Victoria.

The scope Mr Morrison outlined very broadly yesterday includes practical matters, such as focusing on the operational preparedness of federal and state agencies before the summer fires and the agencies’ responsiveness in the aftermath. Those are necessary lines of inquiry, and they should run alongside what we believe are equally necessary state-based inquiries and reviews into operations, preparations, obstacles and failure, such as the one being considered by NSW, or the one Victoria held after Black Saturday.

The more profound areas of focus, though, for the Commonwealth royal commission are shaping up as climate change responses and federal-state relations. How these latter themes of inquiry are framed will be of utmost importance.

Read The Age Editorial - “Nation wants answers on climate change action.”

Pauline Hanson angrily rejects climate-bushfires link on Today

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has angrily rejected suggestions that climate change has contributed to the scale of Australia’s unprecedented bushfire season.

The Queensland Senator says climate change should play
 no part in a royal commission into bushfires. 

In an almost five-minute diatribe on Channel Nine Nine’s Today show on Monday, Ms Hanson said a build-up of fuel on the forest floor due to a lack of hazard reduction burns was to blame for the blazes that have devastated millions of hectares in southern Australia.

“It is a build-up of the fuel over a period of time – 30-plus years that it has come to this stage now,” she said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday announced the government would convene a royal commission into Australia’s devastating bushfires, which would look at the impact of climate change, the operational response at a state and local level and the role of the federal government.

Read The New Daily story - “Pauline Hanson angrily rejects climate-bushfires link on Today.”

Scott Morrison calls for a royal commission into Australia's bushfire crisis after thousands of protesters rallied for action on climate change

Scott Morrison has called for a royal commission into the bushfire crisis following worldwide protests demanding government action on climate change. 

Three women hold placards demanding action in a rally in Sydney on Friday.

Details of the inquiry would be put to the premiers and federal cabinet in coming weeks, the prime minister said on Sunday. 

'I think Australians have a very reasonable expectation that any commission of inquiry, royal commission, would need to cover the full gamut of issues.’

Facing criticism that federal authorities sat on their hands earlier in the bushfire season, Mr Morrison said his government had acted on all recommendations put to it.

Read the story from the Daily Mail by Karen Ruiz - “Scott Morrison calls for a royal commission into Australia's bushfire crisis after thousands of protesters rallied for action on climate change.”

Scott Morrison to take proposal for bushfire royal commission to Cabinet

Scott Morrison.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will take a proposal to establish a royal commission into the bushfire disaster to Cabinet, while foreshadowing for the first time a potential change to the Coalition's climate policy.

More than 20 people have died and more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed by fires across much of the country.

Concerns have been raised about the preparedness of states and territories to deal with the threat of bushfires, and whether the Commonwealth was too slow to act in ways such as offering the support of the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

"I think that is what would be necessary, and I will be taking a proposal through Cabinet to that end," the Prime Minister told Insiders host David Speers.

Read the ABC News story by Matthew Doran - “Scott Morrison to take proposal for bushfire royal commission to Cabinet.”

Murray-Darling Basin royal commission report finds gross maladministration

The head of the royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin plan has recommended a complete overhaul of the plan, including reallocating more water from irrigation to the environment.

 South Australia has released the royal commission’s report
into the Murray Darling Basin, pictured here at Louth in NSW.

The South Australian Murray-Darling Basin royal commission found the original plan ignored potentially “catastrophic” risks of climate change.

Bret Walker SC’s report also found commonwealth officials committed gross maladministration, negligence and unlawful actions in drawing up the multibillion-dollar deal to save Australia’s largest river system.

Read the story from The Guardian by Anne Davies - “Murray-Darling Basin royal commission report finds gross maladministration.”

The far-right is so wrong

Pauline Hanson.

(Why does the far-right appear to have it so wrong, particularly with regard to something central to my concerns, climate change? The certainty of damaged and disrupted climate system has been irrevocably illustrated by scientists around the world and evidentially it is happening and yet people, including the likes of Pauline Hanson and all those who voted for her remain steadfast in their denial. I metaphorically weep for the world for the populist sentiment that has launched Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party back into the front-line of the political fray appears a pattern being repeated around the world - Robert McLean).

Far-right One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is pushing for a royal commission into climate science and Islam and wants to abolish the Family Law Court, in an extreme policy agenda set to frustrate a future government trying to pass laws through the Senate.

The federal election has resurrected the political career of the controversial figure, whose party is expected to snare at least one Senate spot 18 years after she lost the Queensland seat of Blair.

Ms Hanson has said her party will likely collect a second Queensland Senate position, and AAP reports there is speculation she is also in the running for a seat each in NSW and Western Australia.

Whichever party forms government will have to embark on Senate negotiations with Ms Hanson, who has called for Parliament to "start passing legislation that is right for the people and our future generations".

According to her party's agenda, that includes a royal commission into the "corruption" of climate science, adding climate change is "used as a political agenda by politicians and self interest groups or individuals for their own gain".

Read Nicole Hasham’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Election 2016: Pauline Hanson's big Senate win, and what she plans to do with it.”