Fires, Firies, and Fireworks (Updated).

Self employed and small and medium-sized business employees acting as volunteer firefighters for the NSW Rural Fire Services will receive up to $6,000 (tax free), at the rate of $300 per day, as compensation for income loss.

The announcement was made Sunday morning by Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian during a press conference at the Sydney headquarters of the RFS. It comes after Morrison repeatedly dismissed calls to compensate firefighters for their losses. They were there because they wanted, Morrison said two weeks ago, to widespread criticism.

Australian Greens MP David Shoebridge and Labor federal leader Anthony Albanese, together with Mick Holton, president of the Volunteer Fire Firefighters Association, had been campaigning for the measure, citing a precedent during the Keating era.

It took, however, the intervention of Darren Chester (Liberal), federal Minister for Veteran Affairs to change Morrison’s mind.

----------

Given the subject, it’s understandable that the media focused on that and gave comparatively little attention to another part of the press conference. It is to that part that I would like to give some attention.

The world-famous Sydney Harbour New Year’s Eve fireworks display draws interstate and foreign tourists to Sydney. Every year it is covered by foreign media. It’s also the most expensive (this year’s edition, according to media reports, will cost $15 million) in Australia, but it is not unique: other cities and towns traditionally mount their own shows.

Foreign readers may need some additional information. In Sydney that display is promoted by the Sydney City Council, which, under Mayor Clover Moore, has declared a climate emergency and advocated climate change action strongly … by Australian standards. This has gained Moore’s administration the rancorous attention of key ministers in the Morrison Cabinet.

The problem is that south and southeastern states in Australia are all facing bushfires and fire bans have been declared essentially everywhere. Moreover, next week another heatwave is expected to hit those states and the smoke, which together with the fires, had subsided immediately after Christmas, is returning.

In smaller towns and cities, around NSW and Victoria, this led to the cancellation of their respective fireworks and festivities.

But in Sydney the money has already been spent and the Council does not want to lose their investment and disappoint the public. Tourism is big business in Sydney. So, for them, the show must go on. (Non-socialist environmentalists aren’t immune to the logic of capitalism, uh?)

Unfortunately for the Council, the ultimate decision belongs to Shane Fitzsimmons, NSW RFS Commissioner, whom has until tomorrow to decide whether to cancel the spectacle.

(source)

But that’s not the end of the story. It turns out that Morrison and Berejiklian (Morrison’s frequent sidekick in those press conferences) are also keen on having the fireworks:

“Despite bushfire fears, Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to see fireworks go ahead on Sydney Harbour.

“ ‘On New Year’s Eve, the world looks at Sydney. Every single year,’ he told reporters today. ‘And they look at our vibrancy, they look at our passion, they look at our success. And so in the midst of the challenges that we have faced, subject to the safety considerations, I can think of no better time to express to the world just how optimistic and positive we are as a country.’ ”

That is to say, for Morrison (and to a lesser extent Berejiklian) the show is an international propaganda coup: the “demonstration” that things in Australia are all hunky dory. Much like the recent commercial intended to attract British tourists to Australia.

I would not like to be in Fitzsimmons’ shoes. I foresee him receiving many phone calls from strange bedfellows.

UPDATE (30/12/2019):

(source)

I doubt RFS’s decision will make everybody concerned equally happy, for, unlike Sydney, a number of city councils in NSW (within and without the Greater Sydney area) had their fireworks cancelled.

Clover Moore and the tourism industry in Sydney, no doubt, will be pleased and relieved. SmoKo Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian could be just as happy.

However, it is unlikely everybody in the COALition will be as elated. For one, the chieftain of the minor partner in the COALition in NSW apparently did not get the memo -- or could not read it. Semi-literate high school dropout Giovanni ("John") Barilaro was asking for the fireworks to be cancelled. If his town had their fireworks cancelled, he wanted Sydney to have them equally cancelled.

Go and solve your problem with your bosses, returd (yes, Michael “Self-Combusting Pile of Manure” McCormack, I spell it that way, with a U).

UPDATE 2 (30/12/2019, 1752 AEDT):

(source)