Thread:Pam2801/@comment-44798646-20200107163057/@comment-43541445-20200110021516

Hi Leanna, Thank you reaching out. I did reply which allowed my to vent all my frustrations about what is happening here, but it didn’t post which was probably good but did help me - so thanks. I’m Australian through and through going back to ancestry being a first fleet officer and husband who had convicts same time.

Yes Australia is a beautiful country and living in Sydney NSW we have had bushfires in summer as long as I can remember but nothing like the horrific fires happening now. We also don’t have all states burning at the same time, which allows us to rely on support from other States to send firefighters.

We are very thankful to Canada, US and NZ sending firefighters to help our exhausted people.

NSW has been in drought since 2017 which makes the earth so dry, but this is not unusual. Farmers have had drought for a several years every decade since recordings began in 1870’s.

We are hot sunburnt country with many famous poems written about. Sorry for taking so much space this is one of my favourites written by Doreathea Mackellar in 1904. I have removed first verse as it is about England.

“I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains. Of ragged mountain ranges, Of draughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel sea, Her beauty and her terror, The wide brown land for me. The stark white ring-barked forests, All tragic to the moon, The sapphire-misted mountains, The hot gold hush of noon. Green tangle of the brushes, Where lithe lianas coil, And orchids deck the treetops, And ferns the warm dark soil. Core of my heart, my country Her pitiless blue sky, When sick at heart, around us We see the cattle die — But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again The drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain Core of my heart, my country Land of the Rainbow Gold. For flood and fire and famine She pays us back threefold. Over the thirsty paddocks Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze. An opal-hearted country, A wilful, lavish land — All you, who have not loved her, You will not understand — Though earth holds many splendors, Wherever I may die, I know to what brown country My homing thoughts will fly.”

We debate reasons why - same saying it is just climate change, others lack of sifnificant backburning in winter and unfortunately arson - 19 people have been charged. We are lucky we have a strong Australian spirit and sense of community. We are also lucky at the financial generosity the world has given us to help rebuild.

Some forget we are small in terms of population 25 million, statistics say we contribute 0.33% towards climate change and though most people live on the coastline and not all over Australia due to no water, we have 3 people for every kilometre of land space.