You don't need to be in power to control the agenda

Whilst there is no denying the weather is a much different pattern from previous years,  but putting these devastating fires down to only Climate Change is ignoring a lot of politically motivated interference that boarders on criminality.  Copied this of FB, its a long story, but written by someone who has witness first hand why we are in the state we now face, please take the time to read it and then see if you fell that the green/left movement has a lot to answer.  Andrew lives in northern NSW but I think his comments would cover all of the state and probably the country:

(by) Andrew Drain
January 11 at 11:39 AM · 

I feel i need to write this in an attempt to try and help some understand why i think the green movement have alot to answer for regarding these fires and the build up of fuel.
This is a complex issue but i will try my best.
In 2000 huge chunks of forestry land was handed over to NPWS. They then shut down alot of the fire trails and fenced and gated many more. They then banned all hoofed animals from the parks and kicked out the cows that helped keep the under scrub down.They also informed us they now had a no burn policy and if we got caught doing fuel reduction burns we now faced 25 years in jail.Then disappeared back into their offices never to be seen again.
The remaining forestery lands were defunded and also left to its own devices.
Ok that's the public lands.
Private land
The department of land and water conservation that was once a great organization that were staffed with people that had a pretty good understanding of on farm life and used to offer advise and also carry out capital works on country themselves changed.
I often went to them for advise regarding repairing and rehabilitating land for clients
Something that made up alot of my work. They were good to work with.
Until we got a state labor government that need green votes. When they were in office they got rid of the public works side of the department and started to seemingly stack the office with young uni educated kids that seemed to tow the line of a green agenda.
We found they were becoming more agressive towards our works and had a whole new set of ideas.
It didn't take long for the farmers we worked for see through their new agenda and before to long our friends there become the enemy and we were not welcome anymore.
That was ok though because they were basically pretty lazy and didnt leave their office very often .
We now know why because they were all working on destroying the farmers.
Unfortunately something we didn't realise at first until we were all called into public meetings so they could explain the new system they had designed for us.
First thing they took was the farmers ability to clear 5 acres a year that by this stage very few farmers did anyway down here on the coast.
Can't talk for over the range as i dont know.
Next thing was we could only build dams to a certain size and they had come up with a water harvesting fomula worked out on the size of the land holding that then determined how much water you could store.
So dams stopped being built. They instructed us that the rain was now theirs and it only landed on our lands on the way to their creeks and rivers and into the ocean.
As you can imagine the farmers couldn't understand why we were being denied water to just watch it flow into the oceans and we all become suspicious of what was going on in these offices.
Next thing you know they started turning up with maps and pink pens and had decided they could now tell you where and what you could do with your land and if they thought it was enviromentally sensitive out come the pink pen and they just marked the map as a no go zone decided by them with no evedience or consultation needed.
By this time my business and alot of our works been made illegal .We were never offered any compensation and told to "just reinvent yourself "..
Then come the blow of all blows the government decided to dereglate the dairy industry.Within 2 years we had lost over 600 dairies 2 processing facilities and 14 farmers had committed suicide just in this area alone.
This meant that alot of the farming land around here was now unviable to farm and the majority got split up and sold to Sydney hobby farmers. They soon learnt you couldnt afford to maintain the lands without on farm income so the land was left to overgrow with mainly lantana and other exotic weeds.
There is now thousands of acres of once good productive land covered in this overgrown fire hazard.
This is about the same time the EPA now the department of environment and heritage arrived on the seen. They were my new gate keepers.
Everytime a disgruntled greenie decided i shouldnt be operating a bulldozer they would ring and make an anonymous complaint and out of the office would come an officer.
I always tried to work within the law so we got to know them pretty well and they would turn up claiming their time had been wasted and we could continue with our works. I was never charged by them.
Until all of the sudden we started getting letters after the visits stating after further investigation they had decided not to take any further action and i would just be issued with an official warning. When i ask why i was getting an offical warning if i had done nothing wrong i was told don't worry thats just what we have to do.
Then in August 2017 the new liberal state government changed the native vegetation act so back into the department of land and water we went to try and find out the rule changes . We were not at all welcomed and told they didnt agree with the changes and would be implementing a go slow on any works we wanted to get through for our clients under the new rules. This is exactly what they did to the point my clients would just give up trying.
Again the green agendah had rared its ugly head
Now comes all our favorites the local council..They come up with a great new plan called the E4 Zone that is Enviromental living zone. This was brought in without one bit of consultation with the people and just imposed on peoples lands at councils discretion .
Finally it all come to a head a couple of yaers ago for me .I was clearing lantana from the back boundary of a property and the new ordnance officer from council turned up and informed me i was illegally clearing. He told me this land is now E4 zoned.
At that stage i had never heard of it. I was informed that meant no tracked machines allowed and even if the client wanted to build a cook pen they needed a DA. This was a rural block of 50 acres .
I pointed out it was a boundary between the NPWS land and was covered in lantana 40 foot up into the trees. I then asked how do we clear it and was told with high powered poison sprayers and it will die and disappear.
I couldnt believe what i was hearing. When i stated if i was fined for this it could possibly put me out of business.
I was told " good "..
Council then fined me for developmental without development concent. I challenged them in court and without being able to afford representation and the fact they spent over 30 k to make sure i was convicted i was screwed.
Not surprisingly those EPA official warnings turned up and painted me as someone that had had 3 warnings and was a bad boy..Thankfully the judge seen through their game and wouldn't allow them to increase my fine from 6k to the now 120k they wanted and also only awarded them 1500 towards there court costs stating they would only get what a duty solicitor would get.
But unfortunately couldnt over turn my conviction as i had actually broken their new law. He was not happy with their conduct.
Now this is just my experience in my local area of the Mid North Coast so i dont know if this is national. But if your wondering how our lands have become so overgrown and have huge fuel loads on them i hope this helps explain my version of what has happened in my area.
Now im not a climate change denier but to allow these departments to hide behind this when in fact they are the biggest offenders for allowing these huge fuel loads is crazy and if we do not address these government funded departments we will only bring more of the same in the future.
I expect all the abuse i will receive and have broad sholders so fire away. I'm passionate about our flora and fauna along with our food and water security so please try and understand i was never out to wantingly destroy our country i was just trying my best to help supply the food for the cities like so many of the rural community were and still are .
To try and blame the current PM is just ill advised as it's a state matter anyway that i believe has been aided by these departments and i do believe they should be help responsible for their crazy green agends.
That my friends is how i think the greens have created this situation without ever being in power.
Hope it helps some understand . I know alot won't want to. .lol

I read this the other day . I think the issue is caused by a lot of contributing factors , and no one thing can be the cause . Climate change cannot be denied , but how much of it is by natural evolutionary causes , and how much we as a race are contributing to it can , and is  a matter of contention . Either way ,I think what we have must be managed the best we are able ,  to preserve as much of what we have for as long as we can . 
Life on earth is dependent on so many things being correct to sustain life , it doesn't take much to tip the balance in the other direction , be it man made , or evolutionary .
Who knows ,one day our speck of dirt may even get hit by another huge Asteroid and we might end up with the same fate of the Dinosaurs ...............

paul wrote:I read this the other day . I think the issue is caused by a lot of contributing factors , and no one thing can be the cause . Climate change cannot be denied , but how much of it is by natural evolutionary causes , and how much we as a race are contributing to it can , and is  a matter of contention . Either way ,I think what we have must be managed the best we are able ,  to preserve as much of what we have for as long as we can . 
Life on earth is dependent on so many things being correct to sustain life , it doesn't take much to tip the balance in the other direction , be it man made , or evolutionary .
Who knows ,one day our speck of dirt may even get hit by another huge Asteroid and we might end up with the same fate of the Dinosaurs ...............

My thoughts too Paul

Further to that:

In SA we still have considerable burn offs conducted in National Parks and conservation reserves, I did hear (haven't read it on an official site) that there were less done than usual, not because they didn't want to do them but because SA has been so dry it was considered too dangerous even in winter and spring. I know a lot were done in the Adelaide Hills, particullay around Mt Lofty & Cleland parks in November and December.

After a couple of good seasons of rain, this was what we were dealt up or not) in late 2018 and all of 2019 (this is rainfall and my gauge and last 9/10 year averages from the same gauge

Sept 2018  20.8mm (9 year Ave 47.0)
Oct 2018  24.0 (24.0)
Nov 2018  28.0 (19.6)
Dec 2018  21.3 (31.4)

Jan 2019  0.2 (10 year Ave 20.3)
Feb 2019  4.4 (22.8 )
Mar 2019  3.4 (27.6)
April 2019  5.4 (32.3)
May 2019  95.8 (48.9) 2 days had over 15mm each which is very high for Adelaide
June 2019 88.0 (30.0) one day had 41.3, another had 21.7, both very unusual for Adelaide, half of the month was rainless
July 2019 45.3 (71.3)
Aug 2019 38.0 (62.2)
Sept 2019 38.9 (44.3)
Oct 2019 18.0 (24.0)
Nov 2019 26.9 (19.9)
Dec 2019 4.8 (30.4)

Total for 2019, 369.1 (433.9) which doesn't seem too bad except well over 1/2 that fell in 3 months

By early December there had been a lot of plant growth but very little rain to keep things damp,  we had no moisture in the top 12 - 18 inches of soil back in September when I was building retaining walls in my rear yard.

I don't know why other states have stopped burn offs, I'm sure the greenies can take some of the blame but governments have many agendas, one big one is saving $$$$ where they can, I'm sure burn offs cost a lot of money to do but as we've seen, not doing them can be attributed to costing the country much more