MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Canberra started off 2020 with the worst air pollution in the world. The Parliament House in Capital Hill in the morning of New Year’s Day was barely visible because of the thick fire smoke which already had spread as wide as Europe. What is less visible than this gloomy landscape is how Scott Morrison’s Coalition government is going to cope with the worst bushfire crisis in the Commonwealth’s history. So far, over 1 billion animals have been killed whilst the ongoing bushfires had already devastated more than three folds of the area destroyed in California in 2018 and six times of the rainforests in Brazilian Amazon in 2019. At least 26 people died from the fires and more than two hundred homes were damaged, of which figures can rise more dramatically as the crisis continues.

The Prime Minister has been at the centre of nationwide mockeries and criticisms for his initially unannounced family holiday in Hawaii in late December, when deadly bushfires had intensified in two of the most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria. His PR attempts to avoid the mistakes that President George W. Bush made in response to Hurricane Katrina had not been great for the Liberal party leader, who was less than a year ago perceived as a political mastermind for his unexpected victory in the Federal Election against the majority of poll predictions. His government’s refusal to pay volunteer firefighters resulted in a series of embarrassments for Morrison, such as local firefighters refusing to shake his hand and a firefighter telling him to “go and get f*cked” on a news report. Not surprisingly, the social media has not been kind to him as well, calling him “Scotty from Marketing”. The new nickname, currently trending on major platforms and parodies, has a reference to his infamous “So where the bloody hell are you?” campaign when he was the managing director for Tourism Australia, and it reflects the overall disappointment on his crisis management performance as a leader.

Most of media’s analysis has been focused on the sheer magnitude of bushfires and the follow-up responses from Morrison administration. Clearly his leadership by far has been far from satisfactory and this will be a huge challenge for him in the next federal election, given that the ruling Liberal-National coalition had three different party leaders in the past 7 years. Massive protests in major cities from Brisbane to Melbourne suggest a similar forecast for Mr Morrison. Facing the domestic uproar, the Prime Minister has defended his handling of this severe emergency and his government’s position on climate change, whilst still rejecting the direct link between the climate change itself and the unprecedented scale of bushfires. The Liberal Party released a promotional advertisement in the first weekend of 2020 to defend its party leader, although its divisive message has not been interpreted well in the time of national crisis, as it failed to restore the level of trust in the governing coalition.

Sydney under the bushfire smoke, December 2019 (Picture: Nick-D via Wikimedia)

Whilst those countless Koalas and other exclusively unique Australian wildlife are trapped in this ongoing inferno, it is painfully difficult to see a suitable solution delivered from the key decision-makers. The way right-wing and conservative media outlets – mostly under the ownership of News Corp controlled by Rupert Murdoch – deliberately omit or remove the exact phrase ‘climate change’ in their coverage of bushfires is just the beginning to demonstrate how toxic the debates on environmental issues have become in Australia. Instead of coming up with a practical solution via constructive nationwide conversations and compromises, the Coalition has refused to investigate on the impacts of climate change. Dodging the topic might be useful in a political game to win the support of key domestic interest groups. A notable example would be the coal mining industry which has strongholds in rural Queensland and it is often mentioned as the key “kingmaker” in post-election analysis. Nonetheless, this playbook does not actually produce a solution for the future. Even though denying imminent environmental issues to emphasise its image as the party of economic growth and security might have worked for the Coalition in previous elections, multiple researches present that this climate-denial attitude actually damages the economy and national security as well in the long term. Stuck in this over-repeating 3-year-election-cycle, Canberra has failed to look beyond the deliberate polarisation of debate, which often leads to leadership challenges from a governing party MP when the government seems to have low approval rates from the polls. It is quite worrying that some politicians are willing to utilise climate denialism and conspiracies as a means to pursue their personal political ends, regardless of what they really believe in. For instance, Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister who infamously repealed the carbon tax during his tenure, was reportedly said that the world is “in the grip of a climate clut”, despite the mounting scientific evidences disagreeing, including the latest data from the Australian meteorology bureau showing that 2019 was the hottest and driest year in recorded history in Australia. Moreover, the current Liberal leader once brought a handful of coal on the floor of the House of Representatives as an attempt to win the votes from one of the largest export industries, whilst his deputy was criticised for downplaying the climate change by branding it as the concerns of only “inner-city raving lunatics”. 

The Coalition’s climate denial is even evident in the international stage. Although the Australian Government is claiming that its commitment in multilateral efforts to tackle climate change is unquestionable, Australia was in fact one of few states – along with Brazil and the US – that objected to a follow-up climate accord for the monumental Paris Agreement of 2015 at the COP 2019 in Madrid. Not even its current commitments under the Paris Accord are actually adequate enough to go carbon neutral in the near future, as the Coalition is sticking with its old criteria from the Kyoto Protocol. In the international community, the European Union in particular is certainly aware of this development, as the French negotiators recently warned their Australian counterparts on its deteriorating environmental records in a trade agreement negotiation. Thus, in Canberra, if you need to defy scientific facts and common sense, just avoid, dilute and divide the conversation to secure your campaign funding. This illiberal playbook is paralysing the constructive decision-making process when the whole country is heading towards an apocalyptic suicide.

Despite this political deadlock, it is not fair to say that Australians do not know how to overcome a national emergency. Until not long ago, Australia was known to be one of the healthiest liberal democracies, demonstrated particularly in its constructive post-crisis management of the Port Arthur massacre in 1994. The conservative Liberal government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, successfully implemented a swift gun control legislation, within a few months after the massacre, in spite of the initial dissatisfaction from its core supporters. Back then, politicians did know how to put the safety of their citizens over the short-term political agendas and this could effectively save countless lives afterwards. The logical, consensus-based politics is not a relic of the past. Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand has proved that it is possible to enact quickly and constructively in the time of crisis. The new nationwide ban on most of semi-automatic guns introduced by the Labour government led by the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern right after the Christchurch mass shooting had no sign of denial, negative cohesion and polarisation from key decision-makers. The government recognised the need for a stricter gun control to prevent similar tragedies in the future and the public widely backed this view which enacted a sweeping political solution.

Australians are perhaps the most optimistic people in the world. Their culture built on mateship and fair go will not give up its fight against the growing dangers of climate change. There is already a broad consensus amongst the public on more actions required to tackle climate change and Australia has a significant potential to sustain economic growth without sacrificing its natural treasures like the Great Barrier Reef. Those in Canberra under the gloomy smoke need to ask themselves, “What on earth is going on?”