As I recently wrote, Victoria has consistently failed to meet the hazard reduction targets recommended by the Black Saturday royal commission. In fact, not only has Australia’s wokest state completely failed to meet its own targets, even those targets were well short of what the royal commission recommended.
Worse, Victorian bureaucrats have done everything in their power to hide their own incompetence. The Andrews government has flatly refused to release its own fuel load maps, even after being ordered to do so by the Victorian parliament.
Red Dan Andrews – who went on holiday to Communist China while his state burned – has a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
Lucky for him he’s got a loyal Praetorian guard of union boot-boys to cover his arse.
The Australian firefighters union has attacked Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan for a royal commission into this summer’s disastrous bushfires, instead calling for an audit of recommendations from previous inquiries.
In one sense, they’re not entirely wrong. Previous inquiries have established, again and again, what must be done to minimise the risk in one of the most fire-prone regions in the world. But governments such as Andrews’s have consistently failed to step up to the plate.
A new inquiry would almost certainly embarrass the Andrews government by plainly highlighting its shocking record of failure and cover-ups.
Enter the professional head-kickers.
The United Firefighters Union of Australia described the prime minister’s proposal as a costly and time-consuming process that would be emotionally gruelling for witnesses forced to relive the trauma of the fires.
The union for professional firefighters argues the proposed royal commission would have no binding powers while just duplicating recommendations made in previous reviews.
smh.com.au/politics/federal/firefighters-union-slams-plans-for-federal-royal-commission-into-fires
Some background is necessary, here. “Professional firefighters” means city-based firefighters – the hook and ladder boys. Bushfire fighting is almost entirely the work of volunteers like the Country Fire Authority (CFA) in Victoria and the Rural Fire Service (RFS) in NSW.
Daniel Andrews is bought-and-paid-for by the UFU. In one of the grubbiest political deals to besmirch Victoria, the home of the notorious Tommy Bent, Andrews repaid the UFU for their election doorknocking by breaking up the proudly rural volunteer CFA, and handing complete control over to the city-based professionals. In the subsequent political storm, bushfire tankers blocked Melbourne streets, the entire CFA board was sacked, and Andrews’s own emergency services minister resigned in protest.
But a grubby deal is a grubby deal: the union boot-boys got their way.
And now they’re going in, billy-clubs swinging, to protect their boss.
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