All over the place

After Australia’s hottest and driest year on record in 2019, the summer’s bushfires were unprecedented – everyone said so, ad nauseum. Some days it seemed the whole country was ablaze. During the crisis, our parliamentarians seemed to be all over the place too – one emergency services minister went to Europe and the prime minister jetted off on a Hawaiian holiday. Questions of leadership and preparation were thrashed out in the media. The role of climate change came to the fore as debate raged over the cause of the fires.