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Australia fires live: NSW MP says at least 200 homes destroyed and Victoria bushfires continue – latest updates Australia fires live: NSW MP says at least 200 homes destroyed and Victoria bushfires continue – latest updates
(32 minutes later)
Four unaccounted for in Victoria after East Gippsland fires claim homes in Buchan, Sarsfield and MallacootaFour unaccounted for in Victoria after East Gippsland fires claim homes in Buchan, Sarsfield and Mallacoota
AAP has an update on what is happening in WA at the moment: There are a lot of people desperately trying to get information - or let loved ones know they are OK. By the by - Telstra’s contract to run Australia’s payphone network, ends this year
The report of Mick Robert’s death brings the fire death toll, since Monday, to four.
Twelve people have lost their lives this season, including three RFS volunteers.
Almost 1,000 homes have been lost since July, when the fires began.
From Townsville to Victoria:
More tragic news – from AAP:
Speaking of Australia and climate change, David Littleproud doubled down on that on ABC AM radio this morning.
Kim Landers: After all of this, we’ve seen incident controller, after incident controller, and plenty of experts say that they have seen nothing like this before. Do you acknowledge that the federal government now has to do more about climate change?
David Littleproud: Well, we are and continue to, we’ve made our commitments, internationally and we intend to [keep them].
Landers: You’ve made those commitments internationally, I know the government says it will live up to those commitments, but there are a lot of people saying more needs to be done, something more than just meeting those commitments.
Littleproud: That’s what we will have to do to meet those commitments and we continue to make those endeavours and that is what we continue to look to, to actually supplement renewable energies, we have given subsidies to those to get them up to a point, to get them competitive from a market prospective, so the reality is the government continues to work through it.
All industries, even in agriculture, which equates to 17% of reductions of emissions are looking to get to carbon neutrality by 2030 themselves, so industry and government are working together to ensure we do our bit.
Landers: Do you think the public is going to think that is enough though?
Littleproud: It’s not just ... it is also important, it would be unrealistic to think Australia can do it by ourselves.
We are leading by example and we expect the rest of the world to come with us, because we are 1.3% of emissions and we expect the rest of the world to do their bit as well, because if we all work globally together – and we are working globally in these fires, we have US firefighters, Canadian, New Zealanders.
If we work together, collaboratively as a world community, then we will be able to meet our emissions reduction targets as a globe, not just Australia.
AAP has an update on what is happening in Western Australia at the moment:
He finishes that answer with this:He finishes that answer with this:
Anthony Albanese on coal:Anthony Albanese on coal:
Anthony Albanese on whether or not he believes Scott Morrison is taking the situation seriously enough:
Addressing the Greens’ calls for a royal commission into the bushfires, which Luke posted about a little earlier today, Anthony Albanese says Labor is open to it, but wants something which will result in action ‘now’:
Anthony Albanese:
Anthony Albanese:
Mike Bowers is in Batemans Bay.
He says it has taken an hour and a half to navigate traffic heading north on the Princes Highway and there are almost no petrol stations open and those that are only accept cash.
“But the ATMs are down, so you can’t get cash,” Bowers says.
Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers are in Brisbane, as part of Labor’s Queensland ‘reset’ and holding a press conference.
Let’s see if now is the time for Albanese to talk about coal, because yesterday, apparently, was not.
The Lake Tyers Aboriginal community has begun to run out of water this morning.
The Aboriginal-owned Gunai/Kurnai community, which is only 11km east of Lakes Entrance as the crow flies but about 25 minutes by road, has been cut off since Monday.
About 45 people chose to remain in the community as the fire threatened and retreated to the health centre. Their only protection is the fire chief, Charmaine Sellings; her two volunteers, and one ute with a slip-on tank. They will have to fill the ute out of the water from her daughter’s pool, Sellings says, unless the power and water is switched back on. Their second fire truck was comandeered by the local CFA, of which Sellings is a volunteer, to fight fires north of Lakes Entrance.
“There’s a lot of fuel, it’s really dry, most of the dams are dry, and our water has gone on the blink again,” Sellings says.
The community is cut off from the Princes Highway by a broad stretch of forest, which turns into farmland about 2km from the settlement. The community began as a church mission in 1863 and Lake Tyers residents were granted the freehold in 1971, under the Aboriginal Lands Act. Many residents were born on the mission, and it’s a “haven” for many other Koori, Suzie Squires, the CEO of the local housing corporation, says.
Their last visit from emergency services was on Sunday, Sellings says. They have received no further information other than what was listed on the VicEmergency app, and watched the flames at Nowa Nowa on Monday night knowing they were only 8km away and not knowing whether they would get close. Sellings’ biggest concern is the health of elderly residents, many of whom have respiratory problems.
If the fire is blown towards them and reaches the community centre, Kerry Tregonning says, they plan to take to the water.
“We have got the boats out the back we can use to accomodate about 20 people, we have 20 life jackets for everyone to evacuate if we have to go to the water,” Tregonning says. “We are trying to source more life jackets now.”
If fire does reach the forest surrounding the community, evacuation by water will be the only option.
The Australian bushfire crisis continues to lead international news coverage:
Friends in the UK, where Australia has just launched a multimillion-dollar tourism campaign, said it led last night’s news bulletins, ahead of New Year’s Eve coverage.