Shadow Minister you stoop here to be as wrong as Brant was.
It is a fact, those of us who have served in bush fire brigades will know, winter burning has been crippled by greens but too by red tape and paper work.
By the folk who move in to the bush, not understanding fires and build in the tree line or near it.
Try dozing a fire break and watch the protests, not greens more likely middle class Liberals
Yes greens wrongly have stood against proper action to stop or lessen bush fires, not as you feebly try to link only under Labor but your side two.
My state is in your hands.
The cuts to funding for National Parks And Wildlife for winter burning are massive and recent.
I however think you deserve points for muck raking as Brant does and too for using the very real grief of so many.
Sadly so many more to come, for your benefit.
It is a truth that most prevention burning is done by 3 groups two have had massive cuts stopping the being effective, Forest and Parks, trained and including the best rough country fire fighters.
Volunteer bush fire hands locked behind their back by red tape paper work and acts that make it too hard to bother pre-summer burning.

Instead of trying to get political mileage out of this
tragedy and blaming any particular political group
we should be looking at who takes the ultimate
responsibility for land and bush management in this
country. We need a federal fire service that actively
polices both private and public land to make tough,
often unpopular decisions to burn off both private and
public spaces. It's clear that we need to fund a federal
initiative to actively manage fire risk by reducing
flammable load. Bushfire agencies could be brought together
to share and learn from research.

SM, I agree with you in so far as Australia acting alone would achieve little in affect on climate. It will take a concerted effort by the whole world to stem global warming. What Australia can achieve by acting, is using our relatively considerable voice to lobby other greater powers like the US and China to take action. We need to lead by example.
The vested interests, big oil, big coal and big business which opposes climate change science are in themselves not guided by any kind of anti science rather by their greed for profits. These big polluters know too well that to take action on climate change will be a cost on them and they wont have a bar of that. The big polluters of the world would much rather see ordinary people suffer through catastrophic climatic events than see their profits diminish.
This particular bushfire outbreak in NSW at the moment cannot be directly linked to climate change. What it does serve, is to highlight that if nothing is done on climate change we will in the future have to be prepared for this and other climatic catastrophes which will occur more often, and be more severe than they have been in the past.
There are those on your side of politics who agree with the science of climate change. Malcolm Turnbull is one who believes climate change is real and requires decisive action now. Australia would be taking a very different approach with Turnbull as PM.

Paul,

Australia is an insignificant nation in world affairs no matter how relevant our various PMs have considered themselves, most of the world's people don't care a fig for Australia's opinion, even if they know where it is.

Australia is however one of the world's greatest polluters; we supply much of the coal that China burns.
If we stopped all coal exports then we would be making a major contribution to reducing pollution.

Belly,

Given that any natural disaster such as drought excess rain, floods, fire, earthquakes, etc set the greens baying at the moon, I thought I should put in something to balance the sanctimonious finger wagging from the far left whingers.

The issue is not just back burning, you can get fined for clearing a fire break around your house without permission, which is virtually impossible to get. At the time of the last fires in Victoria, a man was fined $100 000 for clearing trees around his house on his own land, and was the only one in the area not to lose his house.

The greens clearly value saving a small strip of vegetation over the lives and property of rural Australians, which is why the Greens party is a swear word outside of the cities.

Paul, having worked in various countries overseas, the reality is that Australians generally have a better idea of what is happening in PNG's government than the rest of the world knows of Aus, and I could go for months without a single sighting of any news of Aus without getting it from the net.

The thought that Aus has a " relatively considerable voice" is laughable, and the concept that unilateral action is going to help negotiations in the future is like thinking that showing your hand in a poker game is going to improve your chances of winning.

What perhaps none of you are aware is that there is a disagreement,
to put it politely, between the RFS and National Parks.
It is about the methods of fuel clearance.
I don't understand the details except that the NP&WS don't want to be told.

Until the state government comes down on one side or the other the dispute will continue.