The audio file above – Aussie Trades Unionist Exposes 9/11 Cover-up – was written, researched, edited and presented by Anthony Lawson.

According to a byline of a recent article by Lawson in MyCatBirdSeat (a website that’s one of my favourites for cogent information about important news & current affairs):

Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

As well as some fine written material, Lawson has produced a number of cutting edge  videos about 9-11, Zionism and related subjects. He has a rich, classic BBC-style voice and clearly has professional skills in the art of persuasion.

Anthony Lawson: counter-spin professional

Lawson is one of many skilled volunteers who have come forward in a global, organic, grass-roots effort to understand the dangerous times we find ourselves in – and help others to better understand crucial information about our world that the western mass media has been systematically concealing from us.

Aussie Trades Unionist Exposes 9/11 Cover-up is an edited version of conversations between Melbourne radio presenter Jon Faine and Kevin Bracken, currently President of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. It’s annotated with Lawson’s voice-over comments.

Even though it’s already on view elsewhere, I think this latest gem from Lawson is well worth displaying here too.

His remix:

• cleverly dissects Jon Faine’s verbal trickery and exposes him as a dissembling gate-keeper
• includes interesting, additional interview material that I at least was not aware of previously. (I hadn’t realised the extent to which the original audio file posted on the ABC Radio 774 website was the ABC’s selective edit of the converation between Faine and Bracken)
• is another useful and persuasive online resource fro the 9-11 truth movement. The more places it’s displayed, the better.

I’ve noticed a few minor flaws. Mr Lawson:

• refers to the ABC as the Australian Broadcasting Commission;  Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the correct term
• incorrectly says the opinion poll was on the ABC/Jon Faine’s own website; it was, in fact, in the HeraldSun newspaper
• over-emphasises that Kracken Bracken was speaking on air as a private individual.

The last of these points may be true – but Anthony Lawson might perhaps have added (as I did in my third story about the affair) that Bracken’s remarks were consistent with a policy resolution passed earlier this year by the Victorian Trades Hall Council Executive Council. Bracken at one point tried to explain this, but Faine rudely shouted over him.

In the span of a week, Kevin Bracken has become a global hero, while Jon Faine is now the subject of very widespread contempt.

Jon Faine: would you buy a used war from this man?

‘Nothing-to-debate’-Faine is like a parody of a media gatekeeper*. His hectoring manner and crass attempts to present non-sequitors and evasive diversions as the only possible truth make him easy to tease.

Anyone, anywhere with access to a ‘phone and the inclination to embarrass a shill can call Faine up on air and give him grief. There are probably a lot of people who may like to do that. Our numbers swell every day.

I wonder how long the ABC will allow Faine to serve as a focus for ridicule on the ‘sensitive’  topic of 9-11?

Will they follow the policy of the more experienced public broadcasting dissemblers in Britain, who quietly removed Jane Standley from the public eye for a long while after her pre-cognitive powers on September 11th 2001 became the butt of jokes around the world.

____________________________________________

* What is a ‘gatekeeper’?

In the sense in which it’s used here, gatekeeper means a well-known personality who consciously deceives the public about about specific key issues.

Noam Chomsky, for instance, is increasingly regarded as a ‘left gateeeper’ – see Barry Zwicker’s The Shame of Noam Chomsky & left gatekeepers.

Gatekeepers can usually be spotted by their highly selective use of rhetorical trickery.

John Bursill, a leading member of the Australian 9-11 truth movement, notes that the the outspoken Australian trade unionist Kevin Bracken (currently President of the Victorian Trades Hall Council) is not a newcomer to the issue of 9-11.

Mr Bursill posted an article about this yesterday on the Visibility 9-11 website – Visibility 9-11 Welcomes Australian Union President, Kevin Bracken – A True Working Class Hero!.  He explains:

To many the name Kevin Bracken is a new one in regards 9/11 Truth. The reality is that Kevin has been a champion of the 9/11 Truth cause since 2006 by disseminating information throughout the Victorian Union Movement and the Maritime Workers Union of Australia. He has distributed DVD’s, shown films and shared information regularly with his associates and the people of Melbourne and he achieved motions calling for a new investigation from both the Victorian Trades Hall Council where he is the President and the Victorian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia of which he heads as Secretary. Kevin has also attended numerous conferences on 9/11 and has been the facilitator of such in Melbourne, Australia. Over the years Kevin and I have developed a close working relationship, both striving for the truth 9/11 to come out to bring end to the wars and to get our rights back that have been eroded since 9/11!

Mr Bursill’s article continues:

This is the motion passed on the 28th of March of 2008 at the VTHC;

“That this meeting of VTHC Executive Council calls for a thorough, independent enquiry into the tragic terrorist attacks of September 11.

The events of that day have been used to start pre-emptive wars “that will not end in our lifetime”. They have been used to attack civil liberties and legal principles that have been the cornerstone of civilized communities.

There is an urgent need to reassess the way we view the world after September 11 and we call for proper investigation into the events around that day.

Having followed last week’s Australian mass media coverage of Kevin Bracken’s widely-publicised remarks about 9-11 – and reported the story here and here – Bursill’s article struck me as quite a bombshell.

So… the Victorian Trades Hall Council Executive Council has standing policy in favour of re-investigating 9-11?

I didn’t know that!

All the media coverage I’ve noticed has implied Kevin Bracken is out on a limb – speaking only for himself – and not in line at all with the policy of union organisations he represents in his official capacity.

That impression was established in Jon Faine’s initial recorded interview with Bracken, which was reproduced for the public by the ABC spliced together with a recording of an interview Faine conducted shortly afterwards with the rather nervous Secretary of the VTHC, Brian Boyd.

Here’s the transcript of the ABC’s report on the follow-up interview with Mr Boyd (emphasis added):

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Brian Boyd, the secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council rang the show shortly afterwards to control the damage.

BRIAN BOYD: I totally disagree with his conspiracy theory but look can I tell you, putting that one aside, 99 per cent of the time Kevin’s a very good Trades Hall official in terms of the President because we look after a lot of issues.

JON FAINE: You don’t doubt his judgement and credibility after that?

BRIAN BOYD: No, we’ve had big debates with Kevin about this. This is his personal view on this particular issue.

JON FAINE: He’s wrong.

BRIAN BOYD: He’s welcome to them but he’s dead wrong.

JON FAINE: No he’s not welcome to views that are so wrong on such an important issue and it reflects poorly on Trades Hall that he’s your President.

BRIAN BOYD: Well that’s why I’m ringing Jon. He can’t express them as President of Trades Hall because…

JON FAINE: Well he did.

BRIAN BOYD: I understand that, that’s why I’m ringing you Jon; and we don’t endorse them. It was a terrorist attack; we condemn the terrorist attack.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: But Brian Boyd was reluctant to declare Kevin Bracken “an embarrassment”.

BRIAN BOYD: Look I am embarrassed in this sense that he used his position as President of Trades Hall in his conversation with you and that’s why I’m calling to correct the record.

Yet if Bursill’s facts are accurate, it seems to me Brian Boyd -  not Kevin Bracken – is more out of line with organisational policy and protocol in this case.

About the Victorian Trades Hall Council

In most organisations the President is the primary spoksesperson – not the Secretary. As President of the VTHC, Kevin Bracken was surely within his rights to speak on behalf of the organisation consistent with policy resolved by his Executive Council?

It’s understandable that Secretary Boyd may have felt panicked into disowning Executive Council policy if he was caught on the hop by Jon Faine’s hostile line of questioning. But unless there’s yet more to this story, it seems to me Boyd was not entitled to rebuke his President on-air for doing no more than re-stating organisational policy. The Secretary’s job was to back up his President – not undermine him because of pressure from a shock-jock.

Not surprisingly, the Australian mass media doesn’t seem interested in explaining this story properly to the public. It may be more inclined to report the scared-rabbit statement issued by MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin: 9/11 terrorist attack condemned:

The MUA’s policy on the attacks of September 11, 2001 is unambiguous. The 9/11 tragedy was a result of a terrorist attack by international terrorists who claimed responsibility…

Quite so Mr Crumlin. Whatever gets you through the day

As of today, I can’t see a retraction or apology concerning Kevin Bracken’s 9-11 remarks on the Victorian Trades Hall Council website. Nor should there be. Neither the VTHC nor Mr Bracken have any reason to apologise.

The media has tryied to portray Kevin Bracken as a ‘lone nut’.

Facts suggest otherwise.

__________________________________________

UPDATE (26th October 2010): John Bursill recorded an extended radio interview with Kevin Bracken last Friday, which was posted online yesterday (right click and download here). In this interview, Bracken relates his concerns about 9-11 to the unecessary wars and increasing militarisation of western society. He discusses draconian anti-civil liberties measures ushered in after 9-11 that he regards as a serious threat to working people. Well worth a listen!

How an honest man made the ‘insiders’ prick their own bubble

This week, after avoiding the subject in Parliamentary debate for NINE years thanks to a convenient ‘bipartisan consensus’ comprising the Labor Party and the Liberal/National Coalition, Australia’s national Parliament at long last debated the War in Afghanistan.

Adam Bandt, Greens MP for Melbourne

The debate is taking place only because The Greens called for it – and in Australia’s post-election hung Parliament were able to demand it as a condition for keeping the Gillard Labor Government in power. The Greens deserve thanks and praise for insisting on this debate. As it proceeded, a lot more Australians probably gained better understanding about why the duopoly of war-supporting major parties have been so anxious  to avoid open debate about Afghanistan until now.

The Parliamentary debate itself has had its moments, but in general brings to mind Dr Johnson’s famous quip about a dog walking on hind legs: “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”.

When Australians use the word ‘war’ in this case, we’re not using the term in a traditional way. Australia hasn’t declared war on Afghanistan. Instead, we have troops stationed in Afghanistan who face a growing home-grown insurgency, which is increasingly challenging the military occupation imposed by the USA and its ‘allies’.

A truly rational Parliament – a Parliament concerned about factual accuracy – might therefore call this a debate about Australia’s ongoing military occupation. Instead of that, politicians and journalists call it ‘war’ – frequently softening the pitch with Orwellian Newspeak, such as Australia’s ‘presence’ in Afghanistan, our ‘commitment’,  ‘engagement’ and ‘involvement’.

It all sounds so romantic…

Since we’re now debating a long-running imposed military occupation, an obvious first question normal people might ask is how it began in the first place? Why and how did Australian troops first get ‘involved’ in the military occupation of Afghanistan?

It’s the question that really lies at the heart of the debate. If we can understand that history we may be able to unravel it. At the very least, it would provide necessary clarity about what caused the mess we find ourselves in.

Andrew Wilkie: Independent MP for Denison

Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, fostering genuine understanding of the origins of the occupation was most certainly NOT on the Parliamentary agenda this week.

No-one who spoke in the Parliamentary debate has been willing to probe that sordid history critically. Greens member Adam Bandt and Independent Andrew Wilkie spoke with passion against continuing the occupation, but both of them, in their speeches, accepted without question the official version of the events that led to the invasion of Afghanistan by a US-led ‘coalition of the willing’  in 2001.

The Australian Greens have no real excuse for this. Don’t they talk to counterparts in the USA?

After all, the 2008 US Greens Presidential candidate Cynthia MacKinney has been prominent in demanding the truth about 9-11 from very early days (2002). She can be considered one of the US 9-11 Truth movement’s most heroic founder-members. Yet apparently a realistic and honest appraisal of the events of September 11th 2001 hasn’t percolated through into the leadership of the Australian Greens. I really don’t know why. No-one I’ve spoken or corresponded with in the Australian Greens has been willing to discuss the issue.

Anyhow, the week was starting to look like it was going reasonably well for both sides of the War Party, who between them comprise 90+% of the Parliament. It was looking good for the Capital circle Commentariat too, who’ve been doing a poor job sustaining public support for the Afghanistan ‘engagement’ – but who have been exceptionally successful in keeping discussion about the mysterious origins of the Afghanistan invasion out of the mainstream discourse.

Kevin Bracken

Enter Kevin Bracken…

Many Australians outside the State of Victoria may never have heard of Kevin Bracken until this week. Bracken is not in Parliament. He’s a prominent trade unionist – Victorian branch Secretary of the Maritime Workers of Australia and currently the elected President of the Victorian Trades Hall. When he entered public debate this week, Bracken spoke for himself – not the organisations he represents.

Yet it is Mr Bracken’s words – not Prime Minister Gillard or  opposition leader Tony Abbott, nor even the Greens Adam Bandt or Independent MP Andrew Wilkie – that have reverberated around the nation, causing quite a stir in the process. The politicians made widely anticipated set-piece speeches. Bracken shifted the paradigm.

Kevin Bracken is a large man who has evidently learnt the art of speaking on radio with a calm and gentle voice. On Wednesday morning he called Radio 774 ABC in Melbourne and spoke to radio host Jon Faine. Bracken raised doubts about the official version of events concerning 9-11, called for a fresh inquiry and politely offered to debate Mr Faine on the subject.

Jon Faine

Jon Faine’s on-air response was so arrogant, rude, patronising and dismissive that he may have helped convert a few Melburnians to 9-11 scepticism there and then. But what might easily have been a local storm in a teacup, remembered only by a few local listeners and spotted only by aficionados of 9-11 Truth in Australia, quickly became a national issue. This happened because Australia’s paid Commentariat and political elite broke their own self-imposed rule on the subject of 9-11, a rule that’s served them so well for so long.

For once, they followed up on the story…

Faine’s brief ‘conversation with Mr Bracken – and his subsequent attempt to bully the Secretary of Trades Hall into disowning President Bracken – was posted on the ABC Radio 774 website. But other journalists picked up on the story too. Steve Lieberman of Sydney’s Radio 2UE did a vicious scripted hit-piece, still available online.

Even then the incident might not have amounted to much, but Josh Frydenberg, the newly elected MP for Kooyong, decided to ask his first Parliamentary question on this very subject:

Josh Frydenberg M

“My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the comment of Kevin Bracken, President of the Victorian Trades Hall Council and member of the Port Melbourne branch of the Labor Party that, in relation to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001:

“I believe the official story is a conspiracy theory that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.”

If the Prime Minister finds these comments as offensive as most right-thinking Australians, what action will the Prime Minister take to discipline Mr Bracken and send a message to others that such remarks are unacceptable?

Prime Minister Julia Gillard responded defensively:

“…obviously, I do not agree with the remarks. Obviously, they are stupid and wrong. I think the member was in the House yesterday when I gave my Prime Minister’s statement on Afghanistan. I would refer him to that. That is my view, obviously. It is the view of the Labor Party. If the member wants to research our policy that goes through our national conferences and other places he will find it outlines our view about the conflict in Afghanistan and why Australia is there. As the member would probably be aware, the Labor Party is a large organisation. People join it as individuals. We do not dictate what people think, and neither does the Liberal Party, in my understanding”

Bracken’s question and the PM’s response immediately became a national story, covered on national radio and TV and widely reported in the newspapers from the afternoon of October 20th onwards. Most of the reporting was highly negative about Mr Bracken and gave great prominence to Julia Gillard’s assertion that his remarks were “stupid and wrong”. Even so, the genie was out of the bottle.

One of the first newspapers to cover the story was the Herald Sun. It’s article Trades Hall president Kevin Bracken stands by his 9/11 conspiracy followed the established pattern of highlighting the dismissive remarks of Gillard and other established political leaders. But unlike other mainstream media articles on this subject, the Sun Herald opened the article to (moderated) comments from the public and also ran an online opinion poll.

Sun-Herald Opinion Poll: Kevin Bracken's views on 9-11

Only the Herald itself knows how many comments it received. More than 300 were published on the day the article was initially published (2oth October). By today (22nd October), the total number of published comments is 513 – indicating exceptional public interest. Many comments are well-informed and very supportive of Mr Bracken. The opinion poll which poses the question “Do you think Kevin Bracken’s comments were reasonable?” is currently running 63%-37% in favour.

The Australian public is learning that we are better informed about 9-11 than the mainstream media and political elite purport to be – and certainly far more interested in the truth. That’s a valuable new understanding.

Not content with getting the ball rolling, on the morning of Thursday 21st October Kevin Bracken called Jon Faine’s radio program again (Unionist demands right of reply over 9-11 conspiracy backlash). Reluctantly, Faine took the call. Once again, he attempted to ridicule Mr Bracken. Once again, Bracken kept his cool and calmly reiterated the challenge of a public debate. Faine tried to argue Bracken’s views are extremist and unworthy of debating. Bracken responded that public opinion seemed to be a lot less sure about that. He managed, once again, to come through to listeners as the voice of reason. Score 2 to Kevin Bracken!

Australia’s mass media still maintains a united front about 9-11, insisting there is “nothing to debate”. Even independents such as Crikey.com joined in the ridicule. It’s main hit piece – ‘Village idiot’ union head won’t give up on 9/11 conspiracy – was wisely kept behind its subscriber-only wall, where the rest of us can’t get at it to comment

But a distrustful public is tasting its own ability to see through an orchestrated charade. Comments on Twitter, by my estimate, were running marginally against Bracken and his views yesterday – but debate via social media is doubtless bringing new converts every hour to the simple proposition that the official story about 9-11 is not credible and a new inquiry is necessary.

No wonder Julia Gillard – and her predecessors Kevin Rudd and John Howard – never wanted a public debate about Afghanistan!

It’s worth recalling that when Prime Minister Howard first sent troops to Afghanistan in late 2001, he did so at a time when a Federal election had been called and Government was in caretaker mode.

Magistrate Pat O’Shane said back then that to do so was probably unlawful under the constitution. The main opposition party of the day – the ALP under Kim Beazley – never complained about that abuse of executive power by Howard. It was an instance of the sordid two-party consensus that has prevailed for so much of the last decade on matters surrounding war and ‘national security’. (The consensus did not extend to Labor support for the invasion of Iraq, to the credit of post-Beazley ALP leaders Simon Crean and Mark Latham).

I mention that, because it seems not only was Australia’s participation in the invasion of Afghanistan illegal under international law and a gross abuse of the ANZUS Treaty; it may have been unlawful under the terms of the Australian constitution too. Small wonder there was no major party enthusiasm for Parliamentary debate about Afghanistan at the time!

But the most important issue – and the issue that won’t go away – is whether 9-11 was really perpetrated by ‘Al Qaeda’ as alleged.

If not, the Islamic faith and Muslims throughout the world have been subjected to a modern variant of the ‘Blood Libels’ of yesteryear. Since 9-11, Muslims have been routinely subjected to sniggers, sneers, unpleasant comments about their religion and worse – much worse. Vilification continues through to the present day.

If, in reality, Muslim extremists did not commit the terrorist atrocity of 9-11 (and there are similar doubts surrounding the official versions of the July 7th 2005 London bombings and other key ‘trigger events’), then it is necessary to consider who framed them, how and why.

Jon Faine greets Israeli PR supremo Mark Regev: two smiling Melburnians having a pleasant encounter

This week, the two most outspoken critics of Mr Bracken and his views have been Jon Faine and Josh Frydenberg MP. Both happen to be Jewish.

If I was their advisor, I’d suggest they do not henceforth play a prominent role in demanding that views critical of the official 9-11 narrative are excluded from mainstream discourse. Not a good look. It makes it seem rather too much like an ideological war waged by Jews against Muslims. Doubtless that’s not the case – but perceptions matter.

All of us – Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Pagan, Zoroastrian, Secularists and the rest – must share this wonderful planet. We should all treat other’s views with respect and be guided by an honest search for the truth. That’s the only way forward – unless one group of people seriously wish to try lording it over the rest.

Such an agenda would prompt ever-increasing resistance and suffer eventual defeat.

Supremacist ideologies, in whatever form, have no place in humanity’s future.

Victoria Bushfires, February 2009; photo by Andrew Brownbill, EPA

The tragedy of the 2009 Victorian bushfires – the deadliest in Australia’s recorded history – is something one watches, from a distance, in sadness and horror.

It was a small natural disaster by global standards. But Australia is not the world. It’s population is approximately 20 million. An equivalent per capita death toll in the USA would be around 3,000 – or many more than 10,000 in China.

Australia is a large continent, very scantily populated throughout most of the typically dry land mass, with some large urban centers and a rural area – perhaps 20% of the continent depending on how one draws the boundaries – that’s been lightly settled by modern Australians.

Googlemap of Australian Terrain: remaining forests shown in dark green

At the risk of GROSS oversimplification, one could say there are three Australias: the cities (c. 1%), the desert (c. 80%) and the rural areas (c. 20%).

In desert, there are no forests or even woodlands capable of sustaining large-scale bushfires. Fires occur there – but by far the biggest concerns about major life-threatening bushfires are in the higher-rainfall, more wooded parts of the continent, which I’ll call ‘rural’.

The ancestral forests of Australia were rainforests, which were very widespread tens of millions of years ago. Today, rainforests occupy a tiny area (around 0.25%) of the total land mass. They are not fire-adapted. A massive fire destroys rainforest – or at least triggers a lengthy succession process that would require many hundreds of years for mature rainforests to return.

However, most of Australia’s forests are fire-adapted. They evolved out of the rainforests and are dominated by two large plant families: the eucalypts (gums) and the acacias (wattles).

These forests range from dry woodlands, with scrubby stunted trees and no connected canopy, to luxurious wet eucalypt forests that include the largest trees found in the southern hemisphere. Fire plays a role in each of the many forest types. But the role it plays is not the same in all cases. The natural fire regime for a wet eucalypt forest might be in the order of hundreds of years. On the other hand, woodlands and the drier eucalypt forests typically experience much more frequent fires – in the order of once every decade or so.

Fire itself is a major cause of change. Until approximately 50,000 years ago, the patchwork of dry and wet eucalypt forests and rainforests was in constant change (rainforests were typically along gullies and riverbanks, but in some areas were more extensive). Long-term, climate change was the dominant factor (glacial v inter-glacial). Shorter term, minor climatic fluctuations and chance events such as bushfires would cause subtle local changes in this vast – and largely inter-connected – quilt of forest types.

Aboriginal occupation of Australia undoubtably changed the vegetation and fauna in some places, while in other, less habitable areas, is probably left it unchanged.

One of the ways Aboriginal people controlled the landscape for their own survival and benefit was by judicious and skilled use of fire, in specific places at certain times. Controlled burning was used in some woodland areas to stimulate growth of fresh grass, boosting wallaby and kangaroo populations. In this way, Aboriginal people practiced land management that helped regenerate foods they liked, without adopting settled agriculture. Given Australia’s massive short-term climatic fluctuations (the El Nino-La Nina cycle influences climate as much if not more than the seasons), these mobile, flexible practices made good sense.

Wallaby in tall grass: good tucker all round

There is no evidence that Aboriginals burnt all the landscape regularly – and compelling evidence they didn’t. If they had, there would be no rainforests left. As it was, some 1% of the landmass was rainforest prior to European invasion.

It would even be an exaggeration to suggest that Aboriginal people regularly burnt all of the much more extensive eucalypt forests and woodlands. We can only guess the true extent and sophistication of Aboriginal burning practices. Like so much indigenous cultural wisdom and lore, most of this information was lost when British colonists so brutally and suddenly disrupted the traditional way of life that had evolved over tens of millennia.

Regrowth Wet Eucalypt; densely packed thin trees

When outsiders arrived a couple of hundred years ago, as well as decimating Aboriginal culture, they also made huge changes to much of the landscape. By now, almost all the country’s ‘old growth’ forest have been logged. Overall, there has been a massive reduction in forest cover. The amount of ‘missing’ forest varies from place to place.

Old Growth Mountain Ash: most of these giants are gone - a major ecological change

The nature of the remaining  forests has also been modified in most places – not irreversibly, but in a significant and long-lasting way. Most forests are now regenerating, immature forests with smaller trees than old growth. They are typically less biodiverse than the original forest. Forest areas have also been fragmented – by roads, farmlands and urban development.

The overall consequence has been a rapid extinction rate. Most forests have been so poorly studied for very small creatures that vast numbers of species have probably been driven to extinction without Australia’s new settlers ever knowing of their existence. We have better statistics for vertebrates such as mammals and birds. Suffice it to say that, over the last two centuries, Australia has the worst extinction rate for native mammals of all continents on earth.

Even if deforestation and land modification stopped now (it hasn’t, of course), many additional species are already on their way to extinction. An active program of re-establishing forest corridors would go some way to lessening this risk… but such programs remain the exception rather than the rule.

On top of this, the highly fragmented and stressed forest and woodland area may be about to undergo climate change at an historically unprecedented pace. If that occurs – on top of everything else – a second major wave of extinctions is inevitable. Indeed, if the climate changed along the lines suggested by the IPCC’s median scenario, the very existence of forests in many currently forested areas will be at risk by the end of the century, if not before.

This has profound implications for the long-term habitability of large areas of rural Australia. It has implications for future food production. From the perspective of someone who cares about wildlife as well as people, it’s a grim prospect indeed. But even if one only cares about people, such a loss of natural assets should be cause for serious concern. The driest continent on earth may be about to get a whole lot drier…

Add to this the frequency of major bushfire events. Australia has suffered occasional ferocious bushfires since European settlement (and presumably before as well – although there are no historical records before British colonization). Catastrophic fires don’t occur every year. They do happen every decade or so, in different parts of the forested and semi-forested landscape. Various factors contribute to the cycle. Human management is one of those factors.

It’s more than a shame that some people use the tragedy of bushfires to push an anti-conservation agenda – but it’s as predictable as night following day. Every time there’s a major bushfire tragedy, after a period of a few days, the media-driven hunt for culprits begins. Arsonists, who amazingly enough seem to start a significant proportion of these fires, are infrequently caught. But one sector of society is a sitting duck: the conservation movement.

Andrew Bolt: conformist hack who obeys Walker's Law

I’ll call it Walker’s Law and claim the credit for officially naming this phenomenon, although I’m by no means the first to notice it. Within a few days of any major bushfire disaster in Australia, there will be grumblings, sometimes leading to a full-blown assault, in Australia’s mass media – usually led by the same set of repeat offenders. It’s open season again on greenie bashing… Then, as the horror fades, reality slowly intercedes once again and we get back to normal life.

There is, of course, a case for ‘fuel reduction control burns’ in areas close to habitation – and more generally in some forest areas and types. That’s as long as it’s done intelligently and with a well-planned, widely agreed, and ecologically-informed management strategy.

There is zero case for the kind of ‘burn everywhere often’ argument that’s bandied around in the crasser sectors of our society at these tragic times.

Fire management is an appropriate and necessary ecological tool in the management of the Australian continent. But it’s not a panacea. It’s not a matter of ‘the more the merrier’. Like most medicines, too much can be lethal.

NCC: Intelligent engagement in bushfire issues

This complex policy area requires input from various interest groups and areas of expertise. Ideally fire management planning should be done at a regional and local level. In New South Wales, pioneering work by a small number of dedicated conservationists after the disastrous 1994 bushfires lead by Dr Judy Messer, Chair of the Nature Conservation Council, met an intelligent and welcoming response form the Carr Government. As a result, interested conservationists were assisted at a State level to participate effectively in the development of bushfire strategies at more local level. The result has been more dialogue and understanding between all interested people and better plans.

Conservationists have a vital role to play in achieving the best and most balanced overall policy. Fire management strategies should themselves be embedded within a broader land management strategy encompassing all aspects of land use. The idea of this type of ecological planning without conservationists is like banning the most enthusiastic fans from sports games.

Of course, one doesn’t want a noisy bunch of enthusiasts arrogating to themselves all the decision-making power. But when does that ever happen, in real life? Show me one green dictatorship and I’ll take the ‘threat’ seriously. Until then, I maintain that the scare of ‘excessive green influence’ – especially when it’s implied that conservationists are in some way responsible for large-scale human deaths – is dishonest and ugly.

Miranda Devine: Judgement first, Inquiry later

I hope no conservationists used this bushfire tragedy to say ‘I told you so’ about climate change. It would be as silly to do that as to claim that Europe’s cold winter is a sign that climate change is not happening. No single, localized catastrophic climatic event is proof of long-term global change. However, it is reasonable to note that the frequency of disastrous bushfires seems to be increasing. That’s at least consistent with the hypothesis of human-induced climate change.

Managing this planet so our way of life becomes sustainable rapidly is a highly complex business. Fortunately, we have a lot of people with a lot of skills to do the job.

In Australia, it would help if a significant part of that mix of necessary skills and enthusiasm is not denigrated, in the most banal way, every time there’s a natural bushfire disaster.

One thing is for sure. Just as this wasn’t the first horrific bushfire in Australia, it won’t be the last. We need to help those who’ve suffered and have an intelligent debate about the best way forward to achieve complex multiple objectives. Intelligence is the key – tempered with a little humility and wisdom.

Real life is not University Challenge. We should not be trying to out-smart each other, whenever we can.

We need to put our heads together – not bang them together.