Fire sale? Neo-liberalism and the future of bushfires in Australia

Why not privatise and marketise fire services and then let everyone fend for themselves? Why should individuals be expected to voluntarily help others? Why should the state step in if people have failed to take their own precautions against fire? People choose to live in the bush. People choose their level of preparedness. There could be a two-tier system, with a basic state-funded emergency system retained, but with a second tier of private service providers for those who choose. Competition between different fire services would, after all, produce greater efficiency with "consumers" paying for the provider they better trust to assist them in an emergency. Shouldn’t individuals have the freedom to retain fire-fighting services of their choosing?

The "reform agenda" outlined in the previous paragraph might sound appalling, but that does not mean it could not happen. After all, many great public institutions in Australia have already been the subject of the neo-liberal schedule in one form or another. And neo-liberalism has no natural boundaries or limits; the "reform agenda" can just keep rolling along, commoditising the public, the natural, the voluntary and the domestic, with all the ugly consequences that may follow.

In the United States, the application of neo-liberal values to fire-fighting is already occurring. As Naomi Klein recently highlighted in the wake of her most recent work Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, exclusive private fire-fighting services were very much in evidence in the recent California wildfires. According to Klein, writing for The Nation earlier this month

Even as wildfires devoured whole swaths of the region, some homes in the heart of the inferno were left intact, as if saved by a higher power. But it wasn't the hand of God; in several cases it was the handiwork of Firebreak Spray Systems. Firebreak is a special service offered to customers of insurance giant American International Group - but only if they happen to live in the wealthiest zip codes in the country. Members of the company's Private Client Group pay an average of $19,000 to have their homes sprayed with fire retardant. During the fires, the ‘mobile units’, racing around in firetrucks, even extinguished fires for their clients…

Klein quoted one of the private fire-fighters who told a news reporter that there were some instances ‘where we were spraying and the neighbor’s house went up like a candle.’

Now apply Klein’s description of the US to Australia. After all, one of the points of Klein’s book Shock Doctrine is that disaster relief has become a very lucrative transnational market for big business. So imagine, if rather than the community spirit and self-sacrifice on show in the Victorian highlands last summer, there had been something more like the scenario in California. Ultimately the logic of neo-liberalism takes us down that road: one fire-hose for the rich; one for the poor. But there is a choice. As Klein concludes, rather than neo-liberal ideology, there is another principle that could guide our collective responses in a disaster-prone world: the simple conviction that every life is of equal value. For anyone out there who still believes in that wild idea, the time has urgently arrived to protect the principle.

In Australia, that means fighting to preserve civic institutions and striving for a political and civic culture that is not about everyone being out for themselves. We should cherish and nurture conceptions of community service, social solidarity and the public good, just like those on display in Mansfield last summer.