Has anyone heard from Tim Flannery, lately? Australia’s formerly vociferous Climate Commissioner, who is usually as averse to grabbing a headline as Siouxsie Wiles is to grabbing a quick dip in Judges Bay during lockdown, has been unusually silent for months. I’m beginning to get a bit worried about the old fellow — despite his unremittent climate alarmism, I still have some fond memories of Tim from his university days — after all, he does live on the banks of a river.
It’s a dangerous business, these days, living by the banks of a river in Australia. Because Australia is currently living up to the second half of Dorothea McKellar’s celebrated poem: we’ve had the drought, now come the flooding rains. Months of them on end, with no let-up in sight.
Which, come to think of it, is probably the exact reason ol’ Timbo vanished off the climate alarmism rader.
You see, it wasn’t that long ago that Climate Commissioner Flannery ominously warned that Australia was never going to see real rain again. Even the rain that fell, he wailed, would never fill the dams. Perth and Adelaide would shortly become ghost towns and even Sydney would experience permanent water shortages.
Then it rained. And rained. And rained. Drought and flooding rains, indeed. McKellar wrote those words in 1906. It shows how much Australians have refused to learn — or, more accurately, been persuaded to un-learn — about our land’s extremes of climate.
There’s an old saying that making plans is man’s way of making God laugh. The same could be said of nature and making predictions. Nature took Flannery’s oracular certainty and used it to make him look like an over-zealous buffoon. But it was making plans that got your humble correspondent tickling God’s ribs during Australia’s latest bout of La Nina-sourced flooding rains.
I had, you see, planned to jaunt across to the Mainland on business on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. But then the rains hit. Late on the very night before my planned departure, I received a text from TT Line informing me, very politely, that I was in the poo.
Cue much frantic web-searching and desperate scrambling for credit cards, and last-minute flights and a hire car were booked. So, I made it to Victoria on schedule (ish), allowing an eyewitness report from both sides of Bass Strait.
The ferry was cancelled, not because of rough weather in the Strait, but because flash-flooding made the harbour at Devonport un-navigable. Not just rain in the area itself, but torrential downpours upstream on Tasmania’s Central Plateau quickly surged downhill — as water is wont to — sending rivers across northern Tasmania rising.
Despite the hyperventilating news coverage, though, much of it was nothing locals couldn’t deal with. Of course, it’s no fun being one of the “100 affected properties”, but a great many of those are either along the rivers — in which case, you’d want to be used to it — or farms. Roads that were cut off are now just washed out. At our local swimming hole, the bridge which normally sits a serene ten metres above the river barely stayed above the raging brown torrent.
Landing in Victoria was more interesting. Seen from the air, the countryside was a lush green I’ve not seen on the Mainland for many years. Even more startling was the sight of the Maribyrnong river, normally a sedate green snake lazily winding through the inner western suburbs, surging past its banks.
In Ascot Vale, the roofs of parked cars barely poked above the waters. At the sprawling Buddhist temple in Footscray, the looming gold statue of the Heavenly Queen gazed serenely over the turbid flood.
But if roads in Tasmania are washed out, the roads in Victoria are just rubbish even without the rain. Even though I visited many flood-affected areas, even roads that were well above what had been the high-water mark were potholed and broken. And still Dan Andrews’ multi-billion-dollar follies, the massive tunnel works in central Melbourne, remains unfinished. And the major freeway links into the city remain virtual carparks.
All of which must surely play into the forthcoming Victorian election. An election which remains strangely unpredictable.
In normal circumstances, it would be a safe bet to write off the Andrews government as done-for. Certainly, a raft of “Dictator Dan’s” senior ministers, including his deputy premier, seemed to think so, announcing their early or forthcoming retirement ahead of the election.
After all, with years of scandals, from the “Red Shirts” electoral rort to one of the most brutally ineffective Covid responses in the world, it would surely be a lay-down misère that Andrews is headed for ignominious defeat. But “Teflon Dan” has shown an almost miraculous ability to escape from even the most devastating scandals unscathed.
At the same time, his Liberal opposition has shown an incredibly cack-handed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Current leader Matthew Guy is beset by vicious in-fighting that reaches all the way to his own office. As Liberal elder statesman John Howard famously said, “Disunity is death.”
So it is that most opinion polls show the Liberals lagging disastrously behind Andrews’ Labor government. Yet, other polling suggests that even Andrews’ own seat may be in danger.
But then, polls also showed that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in, 2016.
When polls are all over the place like this, one poll that’s worth taking notice of is front-yard signage. In 2016, Trump signs were all over America: even in heavily liberal areas whereas Hillary signs were noticeable by their absence.
In Victoria, just weeks out from an election, Labor signs are not just few and far between, they almost seem ashamed to be Labor. Instead of the usual, bright-red livery, Labor signage seems to be opting for a more sober reddish-brown.
Meanwhile, massive blue billboards are spruiking Liberal candidates. Make of that what you will.
In the meantime, another massive front of rain is set to hit Victoria and Tasmania — right at the time I’m planning to head home.
Are you there God? It’s me, Lushy: Please keep your sense of humour in check for another week.
