Open Letter to the ABC on their awful reporting standards

This has just been sent to the ABC complaints department. I fully expect it to be ignored as have previous missives explaining that "showers" over firegrounds aren't "deteriorating weather" and numerous other fallacies and dismissals they have uttered in recent years.

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I write to you, yet again, to point out the inaccuracy and unfairness of your climate / weather reporting. This time I would call it less a complaint as you ignore those, but a question.

In light of the facts stated at the recent Fire Services Levy protest in Melbourne (woefully and criminally underreported by the ABC), one farmer commits suicide in Australia every 10 days, I ask you how the following could therefore be considered acceptable:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-21/drought-relief-flood-rain-weather-nsw-coast-victoria-south-aus/105314212 with the headline “High hopes New South Wales deluge will bring drought relief to inland farmers” in light of the contents of the second to last paragraph of that article.

Which article then clashes with today's missive: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-22/victoria-drought-warmer-winter-flooding-no-rain/105319412 headline “Victoria's historic drought to persist despite local showers and New South Wales floods”. 

The second article also includes the blatant lie “Victoria just had a wet weekend, and more showers are forecast over the next seven days.”. No we most certainly did not. Central West Victoria received NO rain. Not a drop. Your lie achieve's what?

Combine that with the fight for survival of communities in light of this drought, and now the Fire Services Levy changes thumped on us by the State Government and you will excuse us for thinking you're not our ABC.

Karen Chisholm

 

Open Letter to Martha Haylett Member for Ripon, Fire Services Levy

Dear Ms Haylett

I'm writing to you today from our property in your electorate where I've just finished hand feeding and watering the very small number of stock we care for on our single block of land. My partner left at 4.00am this morning to attend the Fire Services Levy rally in Melbourne, he's a Lieutenant in our local brigade, proud of the work they do in the local area, and as part of a number of strike teams to the massive fires that have started, in crown land, in the Western Half of the State in recent years.

As a self-employed private contractor, every time he steps out of the office to head out on the CFA Truck, our financial situation takes an immediate and sometimes dramatic hit. He's unable to bill time for which he does not produce output, so we can't rely on the "kindness of an employer". Mind you, I've never seen the fairness in a system that says that employers can stump up wages for volunteer's, no questions asked.

But then there's nothing inherently fair in any of the current argument. Volunteers give up their paid time, put themselves at risk, fight the fires they were originally formed to tackle, and do the jobs that paid services don't provide in the bush. 

Could you please explain to us why is it that volunteers are so often the first called to road collisions, frequently spending long hours directing traffic (the police's job), standing around waiting for tow trucks to travel from over an hour away (whilst chatting to the local one that drove past empty at the time), or dealing with hazmat implications (surely the EPA's job), performing the clean up (the Sunraysia Highway is a VicRoads highway for goodness sake), and running around looking for fires in the various bits of Crown Land in the area (FFMV territory in other words).

I will confess I've been contemplating this letter to you for sometime now, but this morning, I heard on the radio a question as to who was paying for the fuel in the trucks to attend a protest over an issue that is seeing mass stand downs of volunteers, and some people pushed very close to the edge in times that are already hard enough and I thought fair enough. I'd be more than happy to put my hand in my pocket and pay the fuel bill for our brigade attendance, if somebody would explain to me how I bill the government for the time the volunteers spend doing paid agencies jobs for them. 

If we could all come to some arrangement that says that volunteers are valued, and their time is worth the money that your government is attempting to wring out of them over and above the time and commitment they already are asked to provide 365 days a year, then maybe, just maybe, your unfair and unreasonable fire services levy would be slightly more palatable. Add a per diem for private vehicle use to travel to meetings, mandatory training, and all the other impositions placed on your volunteers, and you might, just might, have a few after this exercise in alienation.

Finally I refer you to the CFA Act and the Volunteer Charter, this link might help:

https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/as-made/acts/country-fire-authority-amendment-volunteer-charter-act-2011

At some stage, if you have the time, I'd dearly like to know where "fairness" came into this levy. Can't see it, and have looked very very hard.

Karen Chisholm

EV Ownership - Yes it's a Tesla

Look, we tend not to mention out loud too often that our EV is a Tesla Model Y. Lately it's been "a thing" to drive one of these, then yesterday The Driven posted this piece:

Can you Love the Cars and Batteries But Loathe the Man

and I thought it was time to revisit this hitherto unpublished post. Because yes. It is.

We've had the Tesla for a couple of years now and we absolutely love the thing. Don't regret for a moment buying it, do regret that Musk has fully outed himself as the dick we always kind of knew he was. We've been paying attention for many years now, and you can just about guarantee if somebody's had a really good idea in the tech space, at some stage Musk will show up and try and put his face on it. 

In the case of the Tesla we were looking for a car that met our needs, and to be frank, the Polestar another local bought, or the early BYD's that showed up all over Ballarat in our post purchase years didn't come near the requirements back then.

Reason Number 1 - we wanted an EV. We wanted a really good EV with back up and a reputation because it's got to last a long time and do a lot of kilometres in the process. The service that we've had with the Tesla has been outstanding.

Reason Number 2 - range. We live an hour out from most regional destinations, and at that time charging infrastructure was thin on the ground. We wanted to be able to head out the door with a full charge and get to Ballarat or Bendigo, Ararat, or Horsham without having to worry too much about charging. As it is we can do all of those and return without the need to charge at any point.  

Reason Number 3 - accessibility. Neither of us are young anymore and falling out of a low slung sportscar isn't on. Any sort of sedan these days can be an issue and the Model Y is a breeze to get into and out of, and get stuff into and out of. 

Reason Number 4 - carrying capacity. That distance thing. For us a shopping trip is a return loaded to the gunnels affair. We buy in bulk. Anything we buy has to be hauled home - no such thing as guaranteed delivery when you live on a major freight path in the bush. 

Reason Number 5 - tech. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are no fools, and their moves post that massive own goal by GM all those years ago are something we've followed closely. The BRAINS as opposed to the marketing front end at Tesla are outstanding, and frankly the tech in the thing is mind blowing. And oh so incredibly good. And improving all the time.

We don't regret the car. We regret that a country full of enough awful people opted to vote in a rapist fascist who handed the keys over to somebody like Musk, knowing full well what Musk was, does and stands for. And then continue to support him in his defenestration of decency.

We get that Tesla drivers are probably easier targets than the great mass of mindless nasty out there. After all, as the Driven article says:

Sometimes progress comes packaged with paradox, and that’s okay. 

Although the added benefit of driving around in the thing is how it spins out the RWNJ's who now have to process that "technically" they are the fanboys.

We've always said, the Model Y, the Tesla home battery system and the Starlink system we use every day are despite him, not because of him. We're not fanboys, personally have never been able to stomach him, but we have a requirement to get around, keep our power bills manageable and run a business. The Model Y met our requirements, the Powerwall's been in for years, works like a dream and was available when we wanted it. SkyMuster sucks and the Telstra link out here has been progressively downgrading. Support on all of them has been precise, quick, and incredibly helpful. No complaints.

Would we buy any of these systems again with Musk owning them? Maybe. Depends on the alternatives. He's an awful human being, but we're not dropping ourselves back into the stone age to "prove a point".

Maybe we could have a chat about people who vote for Conservative governments who downgrade local manufacturing and purposely build infrastructure that's not fit for purpose - particularly in the bush. 

Maybe we could all get started on understanding that slinging shit at people who bought a car needs to expand to include those driving Volkswagens, Tata, Audis and their various offshoots. 

We need to talk about whoever is buying IBM, Coca Cola, Kodak, Pret A Manger, Krispy Kreme and Hugo Boss products, reading Associated Press, and taking Bayer Asprin.  

Just to name a few. 

I Beg Your Pardon?

3rd February, 2025

Email To:  Jason.Heffernan@cfa.vic.gov.au

Dear Mr Heffernan

I'm a non-operational member in District 16, which you are probably aware is in the Western area of Victoria.

You'd also be aware that as of today, at the time of writing this email (approximately 1:30pm) there are:

20 Warnings, including an Emergency Warning

and

260 incidents 

You'd also be aware of the overwhelming number of call outs last night, 2nd February, due to a series of extreme and very dangerous thunderstorms that moved through sections of this half of the State. After a day of extremely high temperatures, and break outs of the two major fire complexes in the region (Gariwerd / Grampians and the Little Desert). 

So I refer you to this article:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-29/bushfire-western-victoria-dimboola-grampians-little-desert/104866952

Posted by the ABC in the leadup to this past weekend, where it was known that things were going to become extremely dangerous, and fraught. 

I particularly refer you to this quote:

Country Fire Authority (CFA) chief officer Jason Heffernan said authorities were keeping a close eye on areas where dry lightning strikes had occurred.

"In particular focusing on Gippsland, the Latrobe Valley, and also the north-eastern parts of the state where we know we've had dry lightning events," he said.

"It's not uncommon for more fires to pop up as the weather starts to turn back to being hot and windy."

Whilst I'd definitely not be surprised to find that the ABC have chosen to take such a quote out of context, or cut your comments short, I cannot tell you the disappointment that this sort of dismissal of the real life situation in the West of Victoria evokes.

The major complex fires in the West of the state were all caused by dry lightning strikes. The dry lightning warnings were as valid for the much larger area to the West of the State as they were for the East.

Granted it is not unknown, for Melbourne based media and organisations to be mostly blind to the existence, and/or the plight of the West, but for the Chief Officer of the agency on whom the responsibility for trying to hold back the flames threatening communities and livelihoods all over the West falls, to have blatantly declared that the West didn't deserve focus seems utterly unacceptable. 

Luckily the volunteers did not concur and they worked like trojans (as at 31st January Stawell Group alone have been called out on 16 Strike Teams since the 16th December). 

Karen Chisholm

(address / contact details provided in the email)

UPDATE as at 10th February.

Mr Heffernan kindly replied to my email, acknowledging his recent visit to the area, and clarifying that the ABC had indeed taken his comment out of a longer interview that did, indeed discuss the whole of the State. (His full comments are in the video attached to the above, which was clipped by the ABC to, as usual, concentrate on the East).

This, to be honest, comes as little surprise. The ABC's coverage of anything in Western Victoria is woeful. They have form over and over again in completely ignoring anything that occurs here, always prioritising Gippsland and the East. Even to the point where I've noted many times their utter failure to report on major incidents occurring between Melbourne's western suburbs and Ballarat. This failure has been ongoing, and frankly, is a large part of the reason why calling themselves "the emergency broadcaster" is regarded as an utter joke in these parts. They, needless to say, in this event, strike again. 

Having said that - this bias is well known and I'd like to see authorities calling them out more often. Goodness knows complaining to them directly as a now mostly non-viewer of their services, achieves nothing. They never respond, and if this is anything to go by, have made zero attempt to correct their obvious disinterest in a large part of their potential viewing audience. Needless to say we don't listen / watch or tune into anything much at all on the ABC anymore. 

Grampians / Gariwerd Fires December 2024

Himself was on a strike team today into Moyston and up into the Mafeking region in the Gariwerd / Grampians fires that are burning in December 2024. These are some images from the fireground where they were doing containment line monitoring.

Meanwhile, at home an hour away, the smoke rolled in this afternoon when the anticipated wind change arrived.

Firefighting Equipment (ie we're not here to copulate with spiders you know)

We've been accumulating fire fighting gear now for so many years. Every major fire that gets near, we reassess the gear, the plans, the age of us both, and we tweak and tweak and tweak. This year we're expanding the automatic sprinkler systems, with a view to eventually installing a full on roof version (finances are limiting what options we have at the moment - have you SEEN the cost of farm insurance recently!)

Right now the gear stands at:

PPE for us both - his is obviously CFA gear / mine's purchased.

Firefighting gear laid out on the back deck ready to grab and run

Then we've got three backpacks - two solid ones, and a softer, more pliable beastie that's a bit easier to get on. These are used to fighting ember attacks and small fires around the house and are kept full and ready to get on quickly.

We only aim to save the house and the immediate outbuildings. All the farm animals are moved into the house yard - nobody needs a garden, everybody needs a pet pig, alpacas, goats and sheep. 

The poultry tend to be mostly kept locked up on days that WE think are a bit dodgy. They have sprinkler systems through their yards / the walkways around them that are automatically temperature triggered.

Generator's are stored on pallet racks so we can pick them up and deploy as required.

We've got multiple generators, and the battery system that the house runs on - so the generators are deployed on pumps, power guzzlers like the cool room and anywhere else we think needs protecting on the mornings of any days that WE think are going to be bad so they are in place if we need them.

Pallet tank at the back of the house yard.

One of the pallet tanks sitting at the front of the house

Second pallet tank at the end of the house

Dotted around the house yard we've got various pallet tanks, with fittings that one of our fire pumps can connect straight up to. Worst comes to worst these can flood the area as well.

Old farm ute with a fire fighting unit including pump, extinguishers, hoses and water supply on board.

The firecart is forklifted onto the ute at the start of the season and we leave it parked in the shed most of the time - which makes the run to the local town to pick up feed a right pain in the rear, but at least we can roll that out quickly. On days where WE think the threat is bad we position the ute in relation to incoming wind.

Firefighting cart with its own pump, hoses and water supply sitting at one of the paddock entrances from the house yard.

The second fire cart sits at the front of the house / south-west sector of the property - it's a right pain to move in a panic and mostly goes behind the tractor (which is another story at the moment), so it sits in place. We can reach a fair distance with the gear on it.

Not pictured is the 22,500 litre tank around the back that's sequestered from all other use - just for firefighting or the firefighting pump on a standalone cart that we can move quickly as needed.

Everything's got CFA fittings on it, everything started regularly, maintained, checked.

Anything that's electric has some sort of backup and isn't part of the "core plan".

The house is protected from extended power loss by the battery bank. The air con's only turned on if a) we've got enough water and b) there's nothing flying about in the air.

We monitor the boundaries half hourly, checking for signs / smell of smoke / people behaving oddly / header's running / dust going up / wind directions / speed / temperature.

We don't leave the place on days where it's warm, windy, dodgy. Everything's also monitored by a network of cameras so we can see if something's amiss (and I don't just mean those blasted foxes - which are around in plague proportions at the moment).

Did the Weather Bureau really just mention Western Victoria and Drought in the same sentence....

Of course it was probably my imagination, I can't find the specific reference anywhere, but I'm sure I saw, in Ballarat's The Courier, a mention of Western Victoria and Drought.

Not "rainfall deficiency" / not "dry" but actual drought. They used the word. I was so shocked and surprised I forgot to bookmark the report. Not shocked about the drought bit - we're living it. Profoundly shocked that somebody in Melbourne had dragged out an atlas and a compass and figured out there was a "west" in Victoria. I guess it's possible somebody got lost on a driving holiday to Gippsland but even then, it's a big detour and it must have come as a hell of a surprise for most people to discover a) there is Western Victoria; and b) it's a bloody big area. Imagine how amazed they are going to be if they find out how much of their grain comes from out here. 

But looking at:

https://www.afac.com.au/docs/default-source/bushfire-seasonal-outlook/spring-2024/afac-seasonal-bushfire-outlook_spring-2024.pdf

The seasonal bushfire outlook is suggesting we're all gonna die.

No. Shit. Sherlock.

We're going into this summer with a yearly rainfall of 492.6mls (up to November). That's, what, slightly more than half of 2023 when we got 805.9mls. Which was around 2/3rds of 2022, which was around 2/3rds of 2021 and on it goes. The hassle with those last few years was also that what we got tended to come in massive downpours which caused flooding, washed out fences and chaos. And little of it into tanks or dams. 

So we find the idea of "average yearly rainfall figures" a great steaming pile of bullshit - unless they are spreading it over 50 years - in which case we might pay attention.

But we've been buying in water for animals now for so many years I can't remember when it started (and trust me - that's unbelievably expensive compared to what city people pay in water rates - it's eye-wateringly (if we had any) expensive). We've managed to avoid house water buy ins so far, mostly by not using water in the house. We have shower's that are < 1 minute (we use a watersaver on the shower that means we can turn the water on and off with a paddle attachment). This year we've done that all year round, normally we give ourselves a couple of minutes under the shower in winter but not this year. Which was interesting because when it's as dry as this its also frosty and bloody freezing. But combine that with minimal laundry (god I laughed at somebody on the radio a while ago suggesting it wasn't hygienic to not wash pillowslips every day... I mean ffs!), and minimal everything else and we sort of stagger through most years. Which is a hassle because the main aircon is evaporative so we cook frequently overnight because of the complicated use case required to justify turning it on. We've also had some help from the conditions and the gardens and orchards are pretty well gone now.

But this year you can really see the carnage. We've got dead gumtrees all around - not just in the bush but on the property and road verges. There was a tiny bit of grass growth when we had the single down pour we've had this year but that's dried off and we've been walking through crackling dry grass, dry gum leaves and dust for months now. And the dust is getting worse - even startled ourselves recently driving home - dust storm that looked for all the world like a smoke showing until we stopped worrying, and had a good look (could everyone driving down highways right now do the same thing - dust is brown / smoke is white or black, dust tends to move behind whatever is throwing it into the air / smoke doesn't do 100ks - immediately / granted it can if the wind is blowing). Which it's looking like it's going to do all summer - god we've had some wind and heat already, and today and this weekend we're nudging 40 already.

Wonderful.

Needless to say it's going to be a shit of a summer, after an absolute shit of a year.