Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Australia has tough week with lockdowns and bushfires, controlled Covid case detected in community, and lead levels in Otago towns much higher than previously thought. Our cousins over the ditch are having a tough time of it at the moment, with Covid-19 lockdowns coinciding with … Read more
JP Pomare is a Kiwi living in Melbourne, and a stingingly great writer. His new thriller In the Clearing is set in the Australian bush, with fire forever licking the horizon. We asked him to tell us about the view from over there. 1 Notes on burning When my family read my new novel In The … Read more
Bushfire conditions will become more severe. We call on Australians, particularly our leaders, to heed the science, writes Will Steffen of the Australian National University Those who say “I told you so” are rarely welcomed, yet I am going to say it here. Australian scientists warned the country could face a climate change-driven bushfire crisis by … Read more
Efforts to urge the monarch to repeat a trick from the 70s and dismiss the Australian prime minister over his handling of the bushfire crisis may not be as destructive as the disinformation machine, but it does offer a revealing and worrying snapshot of what good intent looks like in 2020, writes Joe Nunweek. When … Read more
Jacinda Ardern has been in Australia at a time when the country is being rocked by devastating bushfires. So what did the Aussies have to say about her visit? It couldn’t have been timed any better. Jacinda Ardern announced she was going on holiday to Australia last year, but when she touched down, the situation … Read more
As Australia came to terms with the fact that climate change is fuelling its bushfires, deniers began a rearguard action centred around claims that arson, not climate, is to blame. Media analysts Timothy Graham and Tobias Keller look at how bots and troll accounts tried to shift the conversation. In the first week of 2020, … Read more
Authenticity matters more than anything, writes Rosemary Williamson of the University of New England, an expert on leaders’ differing responses to catastrophic events. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been harshly criticised for being on holiday in Hawaii as the catastrophic bushfires were burning Australia. Since his return, he has visited stricken communities – most recently, … Read more
The horrors in Australia have had left many of us feeling complacent about New Zealand’s own response to climate change. But are we doing enough, asks Adam Currie. Aotearoa New Zealand is a leader in talking about climate change. We passed the Zero Carbon Act unanimously, have a prime minister deemed the “Anti-Trump”, and shamelessly … Read more
The scale of the horror in Australia right now can be hard for kids to process. Emily Writes explains what she’s been doing with her own sons to help them feel a little less afraid. My sister and niece and nephews live in Sydney and my brother, uncles, and grandmother live in Queensland. I was … Read more
Bushfire season in Australia traditionally runs from December-March, but since August last year fires have been scorching the country in an unprecedented wave of destruction. We look at the fires by numbers. 480 million The estimated number of animal deaths so far, despite the best efforts of conservation and wildlife protection agencies. 160 Fires currently … Read more
How Australians affected, and concerned family and friends living overseas, can keep up with the latest developments on the fires ravaging the country. As I write this, fires are consuming huge swathes of Australia and conditions are expected to worsen. The situation is attracting global interest, and reporting has been extensive. But it isn’t always … Read more
A new poem by Sydney poet Catherine Vidler. apart from pink sun, sun pink from apart apart from pink sun, apart from all-dying grass, cloud-fuzz, brown-tinged, stretched virtual-zero, stones exposed, thirsty cracks, dry fountains, domestic courtyards aghast, this mix, dirty, dirtier, despair worn sharp-casual, this peculiar view, eerie light-lurking, apricot shapes … Read more
Leading physicist Richard Easther explains what’s been going on with the smoky orange skies above New Zealand. On New Year’s Day, social media in New Zealand was flooded with images of eerie orange skies above the South Island as the smoke from a continent-scale fire disaster crossed the Tasman Sea. Eerie. All we can hear … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Unprecedented early-season bushfires rip through Australia, backdown on school board changes forecast, and Sustainable NZ party launches. We’re going international today, because one of the most important stories in the wider region is happening in Australia. The bushfires currently sweeping through the country have been described … Read more