To expect leadership on an unprecedented level of national bushfire tragedy is a bit rich. And how to be objective in the whirlpool of the tragedy itself? That’s beyond reasonable expectation. To separate the chaff of genuine confusion and emotion from solid guidelines of survival and effective land use policy changes? In NSW we have tens of thousands in a Rural Fire Service machine and apparently a $150M NSW Co-operative Bushfire Research Centre. We look to state bodies.

Unlike the comment above with 4 years on a local council the exchange was all too familiar and easy to follow. But there is an implication, a subtext in the calls of the wise in hindsight brigade. What did Fran Bailey have to say about land use before the firestorm horse bolted? Or the PM from tropical Queensland that banned rainforest logging decades ago. Or the State Govt which actively promotes logging of wet forest types every day of the week.

All these convert to dry sclerophyll, and they monster up to firestorms in extreme weather which travel from the outer ring, over the cleared farmland middle ring, and into the cotton wool arty farty new ager inner ring. Wildfire isn’t meant to get that far.

Sure the bushfire experts know better but hardly local government with the resources to run libraries and meals on wheels. For big government to let little govt and little green groups take the political hit and smear confirms just how piss weak the major parties really are in a crisis. And this is a real one.

When will they stand up and take their responsibility? Or as all those cartoons about Peter Costello have been suggesting, prove they’ve got balls?