Australia’s fires put “Scotty from Marketing” on the back foot

Australia’s conservative Liberal government has this week promised at least A$2 billion to fund the bushfire recovery. The funds will be used for rebuilding infrastructure, helping affected farmers and businesses, and seeking to resuscitate the country’s once-pristine international tourism image. What isn’t clear is whether the welcome announcement also heralds a new approach to, and acknowledgement of, the climate crisis.

The fires have worsened since Christmas. Twenty-five people are confirmed dead, including three volunteer firefighters — two young fathers and one expecting his first child. Half a billion animals are estimated to have been killed, placing several species at the point of extinction. Smoke clouds have reached South America. And the bushfire season still has months left. “This is not over by a long shot,” Victorian State Premier Daniel Andrews said on Tuesday. If London was the epicentre of the flames, the fires would cover Wales and France.

The catastrophe has also been damaging for Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison. From choosing to holiday in Hawaii as the nation burnt, to his seemingly uncompassionate response to victims upon his return, the leader has earned the pejorative moniker “Scotty from Marketing” across the nation.

When Morrison visited the small town of Cobargo in New South Wales, where a father and son were killed last week, a firefighter refused to shake his hand. Morrison said afterwards: “Tell that fella I’m really sorry; I’m sure he’s just tired.”

A colleague wearing a Deputy Incident Controller vest turned to the politician and said, “No, no, he lost the house.” Facing abuse from locals, Morrison cut short his visit and left the area.

As if to solidify public disdain, at the high of the fires last weekend — two days before the announcement of the relief package — the government released an advertisement promoting the success of the Liberal Party’s response to the crisis. The Guardian Australia’s headline read: “Scott Morrison’s political ad is a bizarre act of self-love as firefighters battle to save Australia”. It was made worse by his previous insistence that disaster management is a state, and not a federal, responsibility.

Despite the criticised government response to the bushfire tragedy, the scale of the devastation has opened the door for the Liberal Party to change its position on climate change while still saving face. In April 1996, a gunman killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The then-Liberal Prime Minister John Howard reacted with one of the nation’s enduring moments of action, instituting a gun buy-back scheme that removed more than 600,000 firearms from civilian circulation. In addition, legislation banning semi- and fully-automatic weapons, among other things, has resulted in just three mass shootings in the 24 years since.

With crisis comes opportunity. Howard took it in 1996 — and his actions are still evoked as an example of leadership — but it may be harder for Morrison to embrace today.

The depth of government denial was on international display when, on Monday, the Liberal MP Craig Kelly appeared on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan and Laura Tobin. The politician claimed that there was “simply no” long-term trend to back up the claims of scientists about climate change and no link between climate change and the current bushfire catastrophe. Shockingly, and perhaps tellingly, Kelly later described Tobin as an “ignorant pommy weather girl” on his Facebook page (She is a meteorologist with a degree in physics, and a former aviation forecaster with the RAF.)

Many of Kelly’s colleagues have distanced themselves from his views, but the challenge faced by the party is clear. Whatever Morrison’s personal views, the difficulty of accepting climate change and adopting policies consistent with that position, lies in politics.

In Australia, government is formed by securing a majority of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives. These are awarded in preferential single-seat voting, not proportionally, resulting in the Greens receiving 10.4 per cent of the total votes at last year’s election, yet just one seat. In general, seats are won by the two major parties, the progressive Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party.

Only a small number of seats switch sides between elections. As such, the effective targeting of swing voters in marginal seats has more bearing on the formation of government than good Australia-wide policy.

One key reason why climate change is not a bigger issue for the Liberal Party is the perception that people concerned with climate change are already voting with Labor or the Greens. Put simply, the party believes there are no votes in climate change policy.

The results in the 2019 federal election bear this out. The government approved the construction of Australia’s largest coal mine in Queensland, and the Adani mine promised thousands of jobs in the north of the state. Voters in the area switched from Labor to Liberal, delivering the party two crucial seats, the margin of their majority. These results stunned observers. So certain was a Labor victory than one bookie had even paid out early, ultimately losing over A$5 million.

Times may, however, be changing. Public distress, both domestically and internationally, has opened the door for the government to adopt a policy that is also good politics. No one wants to see this again. Even to government ears, the outcry must be deafening.

The message was loud and clear at the Golden Globes awards ceremony on Monday. Sports stars have made donations. Cricket legend Shane Warne is selling his baggy green cap. Comedian Celeste Barber has raised over A$40 million. Queen are performing at a fundraising concert.

The Liberal Party may not have accepted climate change as a reality, but the scale of the disaster has made inaction electorally unpalatable. The A$2 billion relief package is an important start, but genuine change can only come from listening to the scientists and implementing their recommendations, starting with revoking the license for the Adani mine, eliminating carbon emissions and investing in renewable energy.