141. On Fire

With Greg Mullins AO, Oral McGuire & Professor Lesley Head

Well known ABC radio presenter Natasha Mitchell called this an “unbelievably powerful session ‘On Fire!’” Ballardong Noongar leader and regenerative landholder, Oral McGuire, was alongside Greg Mullins, the former NSW Fire Commissioner who became a major national figure in the Black Summer bushfires, and Professor Lesley Head, co-author of the latest book in the incredible First Knowledges series (the first book in that series, Songlines, was featured in episodes 92 and 93, and they’re still among the top 5 most played episodes on this podcast). This conversation was part of the Quantum Words Festival here in Perth last month. This time, the day after Schools Day, with the adults, and again in pin-drop attentive silence.

Anthony, Greg, Lesley and Oral in conversation (pic: from a Twitter post by Natasha Mitchell).

“Who puts Country first, in every decision they make? Whether you’re a farmer, a miner, or a person sitting in the audience. We’ve lost the ability to put Country first. So when we speak about fire, we should be developing a mindset and understanding that fire is good for country - the right fire.”

— Oral McGuire

The event billing read: It’s a fundamental tool, but also one of our greatest fears. Join former NSW Fire Commissioner Greg Mullins, Indigenous fire expert Oral McGuire, and cultural geographer Lesley Head, as they talk with Anthony James about our relationship with fire as the planet warms.

This conversation was recorded live at the Quantum Words Festival in the WA State Library in Boorloo / Perth on 17 September 2022.

Please note this transcript isn’t perfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read.

SPEAKERS
Anthony James (host), Lesley Head, Greg Mullins, Oral McGuire, Audience question

Anthony 00:00
You're with The RegenNarration, exploring how communities or changing the systems and stories we live by. It's independent media, free of ads and freely available thanks to the support of listeners like you. So special thanks this week to Chanelle Abdipranoto and Helen Rodd for both committing to a year subscription. I really appreciate it. If you too sense something worthwhile in all this, please consider joining Chanelle and Helen and a great community of supporting listeners with as little as $3 a month or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. You can get all sorts of benefits, including, of course, continuing to receive the podcast with transcripts every week. Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration.com/support. Thanks a lot,

Oral 00:46
Who puts Country first in every decision they make? Whether you're a farmer, a miner, or a person sitting in the audience. We've lost the ability to put Country first. So when we speak about fire, we should be developing a mindset and understanding that fire is good for country - the right fire.

Anthony 01:10
G'day, my name is Anthony James. This is The RegenNarration. And that was Ballardong Noongar man, Oral McGuire. In what well known ABC Radio presenter Natasha Mitchell called an "unbelievably powerful session on fire". Oral was alongside Greg Mullins, the former New South Wales Fire Commissioner who became a major national figure in the black summer bushfires. And Professor Lesley head, co author of the latest book in The Incredible first knowledges series. The first book in that series, Songlines was featured in episodes 92 and 93. And they're still among the top five most played episodes on this podcast. This conversation was part of the Quantum Words festival here in Perth last month. This time, the day after schools day, with the adults - and again in pindrop attentive silence. Heads up, you'll hear some sound system glitches early. And though they were largely sorted. Sadly, only one question from the audience ended up being recorded, also resulting in some of Lesley's additional input being lost.

Anthony 02:21
Welcome, everyone, to this conversation on fire. My name is Anthony Jones. I'm the host of The RegenNarration podcast, which has a bit of a play on the word for those who don't know it - Regen Narration as in story, because it covers the people and the places that are changing the story. And we've got three guests here emblematic of that. So it's an honor really to be a part of this with you today. Is anyone a firey or involved in emergency services, or has been, as well? A couple. All the more having read Greg's book, a heartfelt thanks for that. And straight up to you, Greg. Just overwhelmed by that feeling really, the more I get to understand. And who's concerned about the state of the world? Who would categorize themselves like that? That's the common response! Who considers themselves directly involved in trying to improve things? Maybe 50 percent. And who of those left would like to be more involved? Yeah, another whack of hands that probably makes up the total. This session, I hope and I expect may well inspire. Welcome to you all. Let's grand ourselves here in Boorloo / Perth by acknowledging whadjuk Noongar culture and country, and all First Nations people here today, not the least being the bloke to my left, Oral. It still astounds me to think that they've / you've been here for 10s of millennia as our first custodians of country knowledge holders and storytellers. As Bruce Pascoe says, and I'm fond of repeating what a triumph of human nature, that is, and fire, of course, was central to their success. Fire is a fundamental tool, but also one of our greatest fears. So today, we're going to talk about our relationship with fire, the challenges we are likely to face as the planet warms, and the opportunities. A bit like carbon, it occurred to me fire is as much a source of life as it is a threat to it. So even in these times, could it be more of the former than the latter, if we learn to manage it well together? Let's hear from a few people who are as well placed as any to talk to us about it. But before I introduce our guests, there was a Ngalarma man called Clinton Walker up at Murujuga, who last year said to me, you can't call us First Nations if we're never first on anything. So with that sentiment in mind, I'm going to introduce Oral first. Oral McGuire, aka the reverend. To me anyway, that's a long story. Maybe another day. Is a Ballardong Noongar man. He's a leader and land holder with extensive experience in traditional land and fire management practices. He's also a former career firefighter in our contemporary services. So he's brilliantly placed to help us navigate this topic. He's the managing director of Gundi consulting and contracting and the chair of the Noongar land enterprise group. He's also the manager of the remarkable Noongar led regeneration out at a property near Beverley recreating some of the biggest estate on Earth. Please welcome Oral McGuire.

Anthony 05:34
And joining Oral are two very special interstate guests. To my left Greg Mullins, aka scruff. Also long story for those who read the book you'll be in on it is the former New South Wales Fire Commissioner who became a major national figure in the 2019 20 bushfires Australia's longest hottest and most devastating on record - to this point anyway. He started as a volunteer firefighter before becoming not only a career firefighter, but an internationally recognized expert in the field. Of great note in early 2019 he formed emergency leaders for climate action or ELCA, a coalition of 34 former fire and emergency service chiefs from throughout Australia. They tried to warn the federal government of an impending bushfire disaster ahead of black summer, but were ignored. Still, they continue to explain how climate change is supercharging the bushfire problem and why urgent action is needed on a multitude of fronts including of course reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Greg's book 'Firestorm: battling supercharged natural disasters' is a gripping personal and professional tale about at all - please welcome Greg Mullins.

Anthony 05:40
And Professor Lesley Head. She didn't disclose a nickname in her book. Is there one?

Lesley 05:57
Well, there's one here, a new one on Plants: past, present and future, which is part of the first knowledges series with my co authors, Zena Cumpston and Michael Fletcher. It's not actually out yet, but it'll be out in a couple of weeks, so I had to get the ad in.

Anthony 07:17
Incredible series. Do you tell us your nickname in that book?

Lesley 07:20
No, I don't.

Anthony 07:21
Can you tell us here today?

Lesley 07:22
I don't have a nickname.

Anthony 07:23
Don't have a nickname. Alright. It's Professor then all the way. She works in the fascinating field of cultural geography. She's a professor of geography at the University of Melbourne and President of the Australian Academy of the humanities. Her research examines the cultural dimensions of environmental issues, including climate change. Her books include hope and grief in the Anthropocene. And coming out in a couple of months, plants past present and future in the amazing first knowledges series. Please welcome Professor Lesley head.

Anthony 07:57
Now oral I'd like to start with you, given the place where in as much as anything but also the topic, can you speak to us a bit about what Boodja means to you, and perhaps might mean to us, as a way of segueing into your relationship with fire?

Oral 08:10
Thanks, AJ, and thanks for that generous introduction. Yeah, look as a wadjuk, as I am a tied to this country here as well. So I am wadjuk and ballardong in the Noongar Nation, and our noongar nation extends - it's the biggest cultural block both demographically, and geographically. It's 200,000 square kilometers, you know, it's, it's bigger than certain countries. So it's a big area, it's a big area. And there's lots of lots of us, we have lots of noongar people connected to all parts of Noongar Budja. Budja is and many of our words that come from our first languages are concept words. And so those concept words carry not only deep meaning, but they carry codes. There's not a lot of - our indigenous languages and old languages are not verbose. So we don't have a word for everything that you know, there's too many things that have been created. But certainly in nature, there is a word for everything in nature and those relationships. And Budja is one of those concept words, which is very much a female - has a female connotation and concept. When women are pregnant they are boodjari - being pregnant, carrying child and that that whole process of mothering and being the nurturer is an important context for connection to country because Boodja is - you know, we in our language, we say nulluk naarn nidja boodja. This land is our mother. Narnk is another concept word that is tied very much to women. It's our kinship term for mother, but it's also the sun, the word that we use for the Sun. That big thing up there. So the connection to and the codes around life and life giving forces and obviously the the female spirit is really critical. Along with Bilya the word for river. But more importantly, it's actually the word for the umbilical cord in the mother. So bilya and bilyada are natural ecological systems obviously massive systems of life and sustenance. And this area here that we were sitting and standing on, was a part of boorloo bilya boodjara - it was a part of a big wetland system, there were 11 lakes of which there are probably only two and over here in Hyde Park, there's probably a remnant of the original lake there. But there was an 11 lake system, and they were big lakes. So the herdsmen Lake Moogun boora, and Galup which is herdsmen and Lake monger, are the only two remaining of those 11 lakes. So fire was not really prevalent here, because our old people didn't burn wetlands, didn't use fire in the management of those for obvious reasons. So Budja, and obviously, the females role, and significance in life is all captured in these codes around caring for country and, and knowing country and knowing where you come from, knowing where we stand wherever we are, and all these places around here. Noongar people, and wadjuk noongar still hold our sacred names for things that have gone like these lakes. We still hold our concepts and our codes for the deep meaning and the connection of place, and spirit, and belonging. And obviously, that whole concept of caring. So even though we've been excluded in the last, probably, you know, well it started out, complete exclusion. But when they excluded us from the colony, we actually had the rest of the country if you like that we were we were existing on so our culture didn't go anywhere in the first 50 or 60 years. But certainly, you know, the the devastation of colonization has been a loss of connection to country. And so you start to overlay some of these big structures and systems that have taken control. And we end up with, you know, the story of fire, if you like, and how noongar people and Aboriginal people, First Nations peoples, not only in this country, but globally have been removed from the practice of fire. And so Greg and I were speaking about, you know, this thing around the mindset. And that's, that's the problem that we've got, which I'm sure we're gonna speak about. I think for the time being, you know, this is this is noongar boodja. And this is very much part of a sacred knowledge system and a sacred connection of place and being still, even though we're sitting in buildings.

Anthony 12:50
Let's take that as our foundation and go from there. Greg, I'd like to go to you next, because you've described well, your love of fire, and from being a child that really set your path. But of course, you've had another view of fire. That's been I mean, in your case, to read of you describing PTSD as almost a given, a way of life, in the sphere of work you've had, and of course, that fire has really claimed your life. On occasion. Could you describe for us how fire end your relationship with it is changing in this country?

Greg 13:25
Yes, really good question. And we discussed just before this session, how, in 1788, over in Sydney, where Sydney is now, people from England arrived. And they imposed their view of fire with 'its bad fire's bad needs to be excluded'. They came from a cold, wet country, where the environment had been changed through agriculture. And they were fearful of the environment. So they decided to control it. And so anyway, goes right back to there. And it's men - white men. You corrected me on that - it was white men imposed a certain regime of fire and started to change the natural fire regimes and those imposed by the traditional owners.

Anthony 14:12
It's ironic that in the name of control it became so uncontrolled.

Greg 14:15
Yeah. And look, I grew up in the 1960s. And so fire - I don't I don't know that I love fire. I probably hate it.

Anthony 14:25
Really, even as a kid?

Greg 14:26
Yeah. But It fascinates me. because it's one of the elements and it's, it's there, whether we like it or not, but i - My father, my mother taught me about the environment and how it could be controlled. And I suppose, and I'll be brief, because we haven't got a lot of time. But I watched over the years how the fire seasons changed. The weather changed. And this thing that you could keep in the box, the Jack in the Box jumped out and I don't think we can put it back in - certainly not in our lifetime. So I just watched how things changed over the years but the mindset that the male - white male mindset that technology trucks people, and the human race can control Mother Nature, and one of the primal elements fire. And it's just wrong. It's out of control. And we changed the environment to make it that way. So we've got to concentrate on how we change the environment, and try desperately to change it back to something where everyone and every animal and plant species can coexist. But at the moment, it's out of control. It's going the wrong way.

Anthony 15:46
Lesley, in your book, hope and grief in the Anthropocene, you talk about grief as a hindrance. It's hampering our efforts to make the changes we need to make. And that's by way of talking about hope in a particular manner, as well. And your underpinning to all that is this colonial backdrop, do you want to come in with some of what you think's holding us back and where we might take our cues?

Lesley 16:09
Thanks, AJ. And yeah, I'd also acknowledge noongar whadjuk country and it's an honor to be here. So I think that the grief I was talking about in the book is the colonial environmentalist grief for a pristine ecosystem, really. And we have so much evidence now that from indigenous people from the historical record from the long term, ecological record, that that's a quite inaccurate thing to be grieving for.

Anthony 16:39
In that it was a cultivated landscape for millennia?

Lesley 16:42
Well, I wouldn't use the word cultivated. But let's not have that argument just now. But it was a managed landscape, it was very variable across the continent, and it varied through time as well. So that grief hampers us if we're grieving after something that has gone. But I also argued that there is a kind of grieving going on about environmental change and climate change. And it's really important to give voice to that. That book was actually six years old now. So at the time, not many people were talking about that. But I think it's come much more into our public conversation and the black summer fires were a key example of that when there was really a trauma across the nation, I think, in ways that we haven't, to my mind fully resolved, because COVID rolled in on top. But if you think back to the end of that black summer, more than half of the population had been impacted by the fires, if you include the smoke and air quality effects. So it wasn't just a few fires dotted around it was, you know, there's stuff that we haven't processed. So there's a lot of emotional stuff around climate change that we need to acknowledge. But on to hope, the argument I made about hope was that we need to decouple that from this kind of easy optimism about everything going to be all right, because that's a kind of denial itself. And I talk in the book about hope, as practice. And so people just getting on and doing things and a whole range of many of them will be experimental. So it's, it's a concept of hope that tries to decouple itself, I guess from emotions, while also acknowledging that we have deep emotions about these things.

Anthony 18:24
Yeah, it reminded me a bit of Rebecca Solnit's radical hope with that practice angle to it, the pragmatic, practical nature of it - is that something you've drawn on or relate to?

Lesley 18:28
Yeah, there's a lot of people who've written about hope in different ways over the last few years. So there's yeah, there's actually a huge, huge literature on it now. And there's a kind of feminist angle as well, I think that a lot of the I mean, the guys refer to the white male effect, which is a documented effect in in climate change risk, as well as fire risk - that men and women have different responses to risk in the context of fire but also to climate change. So there's, it's a quite, there's a lot of scholarship around hope, and it's a it's a very easy thing to think of as in too simplistic ways, but there's a lot of resources out there now that help us think think in a more constructive way about it.

Anthony 19:23
Oral some of the work you've been doing to step into that space - what can we do here and now? - has been with fire Cadetships for young Indigenous fellas and women and other things in that area. Can you talk to us a bit about what you've been involved in in trying to bring reconnection and a way through?

Oral 19:42
Yeah look I was involved in a cadet ship that was outstandingly supported and results were outstanding. That was in 2015 mind you. So that's seven years ago. I'm very disillusioned with - so I don't see a great deal of hope. I think we've got to have a lot of truth telling about everything, not only in this country, I think, especially in this country, and especially between the relationship and the existence of an Aboriginal First Nations traditional owner, custodian, first world knowledge system that has been handed to us, right? This is global. First Nations people in other countries refer to Aboriginal people, Australian First Nations peoples, as first world, which is a wonderful statement of being before us. So when I travel to New Zealand, or to America or Canada or other parts of Asia and the world, and speak and meet with indigenous peoples, and they go, you know, you mob been here, you know, Maori, for example, particularly know that they've been for 37 generations, as part of Aoteoroa. Here, we've been for 2000. So, this existence of first knowledge of sacred knowledge is a human, a wonderful human reality. And the treatment of that, that wonderful resource, if you like, of Aboriginal people, indigenous peoples globally, not only around fire, but the whole, the whole earth is in serious trouble because of this lack of respect and acknowledgement. So my hope gets very diminished by the simple fact that no one listens to us. No one listens to me, I speak and some of you may have heard me speak or have been listening to me speak and some of you might think I talk crap, but the reality is, no one is changing things. The system is a powerful system that has been overlaid, and control. So I have serious concerns about the relationship for for me as a - and my children, my daughter's just given birth, my mum passed away last week, and my daughter gave birth three days later, to my first grandchild, so we live with this, you know, with hope. I'm not saying that, you know, that I'm not - I'm absolutely an optimist. But I'm a realist, as well. And I think the reality around fire the reality around the existence of untruths, right, in this world is a serious problem for us and our human existence. The Anthropocene era, you know, for people still to be denying that climate change is human induced or human initiated, is just so foolish, that it's ridiculous. But getting back to your point, I mean, we ran a cadetship that DFES - it was there's - and myself and Heidi Mippy were the facilitators of it. And Heidi got me in because I was a cultural sort of facilitator, but also an ex-firey. And we set this thing up, and of course, you know, the brass in the fire brigade, all set it out and said that, you know, look, if we can get three or four of these young, Aboriginal, young, noongar and Aboriginal people into, you know, this Cadet ship, you know, we might help them get a job in, you know, in the park rangers or in mining or doing something, but you know, just to help them. So there was this really paternalistic, patronizing attitude, that Aboriginal kids and that young Aboriginal people and that we as Heidi and myself, could not facilitate a program that we could take these young people from being long term unemployed, socially disadvantaged, and become heroes in the fire brigade. And I lived that life in my journey. At the time, I spent 10 years of being the only Aboriginal person in the WA Fire and Rescue Service. So I know what it's like to be the black sheep in the family. And the fire brigade is great. I loved my time there and I've got wonderful friends. It is a very much a brotherhood, now a sisterhood as well. But anyway, to cut it short we ran that program, it won the Premier's Award, it won the Premier's Award, it was outstanding in every aspect of the result. And we got four of those. We started with 12 finished with eight, but four of those eight that finished are now career firefighters. So we broke down all sorts of barriers and achieved outstanding results. The following year, that program was not funded, not resourced. So we have failed in this process. And this racist approach to the supremacy of the system and the people who have power in it is a very serious problem, our biggest issue, whether it's fire, whether it's social issues, whether it's housing and health and all that sort of stuff, is the mindset around superiority and therefore, the power dynamics that are associated with environment, Aboriginal and Indigenous Knowledges and a whole lot of other things. You know, obviously gender issue and the multicultural. These are all obviously very important issues that we've got to deal with because that's reality. But I don't think we tell enough truth AJ. I think I think there's too much pain. I think there's too many lies that have prevailed - and the topic of Fire is a very good subject to focus on and understand and, and try to unpack, you know why the time bomb that is that is going to explode in Karta Moorta / the Darling scarp, right, because you know what our friend here has experienced, you know, you've experienced it. And now you know we admire the experience that you've had Greg and it is it's a wonderful thing. But that same experience is going to - it could happen again, in that country, it's definitely going to happen here. It's definitely going to happen here and the Southwest, it's going to go - it is a time bomb because the burning issue - play on words - But the burning issue is the fact that there's not enough burning going on and the type of burning that is happening is a serious problem. So it's a bit like the farming, it's a bit like the mining, right, the land management issue and that concept around Boodja and mother and nature. Google this word people, Google kin centricity, because it's now academia that's catching up with what we as aboriginal peoples and Indigenous peoples have been saying forever, that we are part of the natural system. We are part of the biodiversity, we can't talk about saving biodiversity and kill off Aboriginal people in this country. We can't talk about nature, and not allow biodiversity and ecological health to be at the forefront to be number one. I tell people, you know regenerative farmers, I tell everybody, and I've asked them - and you know this - that I've said, Who puts country first, in every decision they make? Whether you're a farmer, a miner, or a person, you know, sitting in the audience, and we've lost the ability to put country first. So when we speak about fire, we should be developing a mindset and understanding that fire is good for country. The right fire.

Anthony 26:48
Yeah, I'm just so struck when I see the grief in people and the diabolical scenes we all witnessed in black summer, that there are ways - there are ways. But that they are being suppressed still, with that mindset, and with current structures of power. And of course, this is something that you've faced. The political scene is somewhat shifting since you wrote your book. But you're still arguing for certain changes. Talk to us about those changes that you're arguing for and how you're feeling about perhaps some of this terrain shifting?

Greg 27:22
Look, I just want to comment on what oral said and he's 100% Right. And I reflect back to when I was commissioner and I tried to help some groups that were trying to bring back cultural burning practices in the Blue Mountains near Sydney and, and the barriers they faced and I realized I was part of the problem, you know, I'm part of the problem and the agencies and the processes and the structures. And just close your eyes for a minute and visualize Scott Morrison looking down - head tilted eyes down to one side with that smirk that arrogant, smirk, that's what your mob got from the fire Service's National Parks forestry, because yeah, well, we'll let them do a few things. Let them - so it's this power structure is a problem and talking to traditional owners over in the East. I said, you know, they say we've got to have a risk assessment, you know, and we can't go after 5pm Because they can't pay overtime to the fireys and the national parks people so we've gotta do a quick burn, and rules, rules, rules, rules. And if you let people who know what they're doing, do it and get on with it, you get a result. But the other thing is, it's like, pat on the head, but we won't pay you. So how do you do it during the week, because you got to put bread on the table, you got to put food on the table, so models like up in Northern Territory, indigenous rangers who are paid to do what they know best. And so that's the aside. But look, the political landscape has changed. Our group former Fire and Emergency chiefs about 40 of us now we've got Mel Kronstadt on board now who was deputy commissioner of DFES over here. I gave him two weeks of retirement. And then said Mal! But our main premise is that the jack in the box is out of the box - in terms of fire floods we're seeing out of out of scale, extreme weather driven by climate change. There's no question about that. On the worst days, we can't change the course of a flooding river or a massive fire under catastrophic weather conditions. So we have to try and get ahead of the game. Climate change, we've got to drive down the temperature, or we've got to stabilize it and then eventually drive it down. So it's net zero as soon as possible. And then removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere somehow, but that's the main game in town and you now have a government who - their target's 43% by 2050, which is a lot better than 26 to 28 which was the last mob, but they actually they're speaking to people. So Chris Bowen, his first act was to invite three former fire chiefs to his first - But they're on the phone constantly talking to the climate Council and other groups like that. What can we do here? And our advice to them was the only thing of use that we found from the Morison government. The only thing was one of his marketing slogans, and it was meet it and beat it. He didn't mean it, you need to, you need to meet the 43% and beat it and just get momentum changing the system. And then we might get back to a stage where if we listened to people like oral we might be able to eventually heal country. And you know, and yeah, there's a lot of grief there. There's there is a lot of grief amongst people who know what's happening in the fire and flood and cyclone and other spaces. And we look around the world just - more floods Italy now. Pakistan, Texas, you know

Greg 31:00

Anthony 31:00
And the London fires now

Greg 31:02
losing homes from fires on the outskirts of London - warned them - several times. But

Anthony 31:08
I hear too, though, that that's provoking out of people, a black summer oh geez it's real - and we're all in it - sort of moment, so maybe it's

Greg 31:16
I suppose but we can't let the grief put us into despair, where we say it's not worth doing anything - course it's bloody worth doing something I got two grandkids, so I have to. And look, I saw there's a couple of firefighters up there. And I think - my eyes are a bit - But both women I think - there's a good thing. And something I'm really proud of Fire and Rescue New South Wales - I had a phone call from the current Commissioner last week - And he said we're up to 10% women, and you think that's terrible. But it's the best fire service in the world. I brought in 50/50, male female, because we had to break the testosterone culture. And the I know everything culture, and it's starting to move.

Anthony 31:56
That mindset. Yeah, that's interesting. Yep. And I have noted that you, you drew a nice parallel to the asbestos story that we're well familiar with in this country. And that's something that should be a bit of an analogy for understanding fossil fuel companies in this current context too.

Greg 32:14
And look our strong view is - we had a summit of, I won't go into all the details, but nearly 200 people from diverse walks of life after the bush fires because the government wouldn't do it. But one of the things that came out of that was if you cause harm through products you sell or whatever, there's a legal principle that you must make reparations. You got to fix things. And asbestos is a classic result. They didn't know when they started. Coal, oil and gas, they didn't know when they started extracting it and burning it. If you've heard of Steven Pyne look up Stephen pyne is a fire historian in the US. He calls this - we're not in the - we're now in the pyrocene period, the fire period, because we're burning stuff that took hundreds of millions of years to deposit. We've burnt it in 200 years, and it's polluted the place and changed it forever, well hopefully not forever. But what - I've lost my track of mind - Oh, sorry. Yeah, so the coal and oil and gas companies shouldn't be subsidized $11 billion a year, they should be paying reparations to help us get to net zero as soon as possible and fix the bloody place.

Lesley 33:30
Oral, you and other people have talked and written about the importance of country as a way that you engage with with the world. And it's obviously a more humble way than the settler way. Do you think there's scope for that to be a shared future for for the whole community? Or would that just be another colonial appropriation of of a different kind of concept?

Oral 33:55
Well, I guess the biggest, you know, the skeptic in me says the biggest issue is, and it's the issue with fire as well. The issue is not can we, the issue is we won't, right? So until we have shifts in power until we have, you know - so if it involves indigenous people, and Aboriginal peoples and First Nations peoples and in this country here, wadjuk noongar, if we don't have wadjuk noongar speaking about and having the right to speak with our minds, and with our culture and our knowledge and our contribution, then I don't see how that's going to happen in a practical way. So we can we can have hope about the world being you know, back in balance again, and everybody living, you know, wonderful lives and being equal and all this sort of, what do they call it?

Anthony 34:44
Aspiration?

Oral 34:45
No, Utopia I think is a more appropriate word.

Lesley 34:50
Which never existed.

Oral 34:51
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Or we can be real right. We can be real and say we've got some serious issues. And just the issue of balance. I think, you know, Aboriginal people and you know, I've spoken to to Bruce Pascoe and Vic Steffensen, good mates of mine now, because we speak so much about, you know, this sort of stuff, you know. And then of course, there's all of our mobs as well around the place and people understand - Noongar Aboriginal people indigenous peoples understand that the biggest issue that we've got is that the natural world is so out of whack. It's so out of balance. We've got monocultures, we've got introduced species, we've got all sorts of devastation around what was natural and pristine for so long, that is now completely out of balance. So the challenge is, how do we get balance? What are we going to do to bring back some balance, and some of the stuff that we need to do is really dramatic and drastic, like zero tolerance, we've actually just got to say, you know, whether it's fossil fuels, or whether it's agricultural practices, we've just got to say, that's got to stop. And it's obviously got to come from the power. So you know, the farmers are not going to give up half of their property and say, we're going to plant a million trees on half our property.

Anthony 36:03
It's too much to ask them to do it too, in many ways.

Oral 36:05
Absolutely. So the economics, you know, and we saw this with COVID. Whether we like to admit that or not, and I think there's this issue of power and control and authority and superiority and disconnectedness, right. So humans tend to think - particularly nonindigenous humans - tend to think of themselves external to separated from nature, and certainly above it. And so they lead their conversations and their power decision making around the principle that we know best. And then there's, you know, the poor black fellas or, you know, the indigenous groups or, you know, the humble people, whoever that might be, you know, and I think always speak about, you know, in the Bible that, you know, God said that the the meek shall inherit the earth. So does that mean that that's our only hope of getting our country back is to stay meek? Coz meek is not weak too.

Anthony 36:53
Geez that'd be another good conversation.

Oral 36:54
So I think that there's a serious problem that we've got about balance, you know, whether it's power or whether it's to do with fire and until we start making some real inroads and telling some truths, you know, the truth telling issue that that our people have been fighting for in this country for a long time, that still gets sort of put back around there is so relevant for everything that we are concerned about. truth telling, has got to be about identity of everybody. Truth tellings got to be about the rights of indigenous people. Truth tellings got to be about the rights of other citizens, who may have only been here for two or three generations. And until we get some balance in understanding who is Australia, and what is Australia, that we all agree with, because to me, this is not Australia - this is this is, this is Boorloo Bilya. And it's my country still, even though I own none of it, it's still my country. And I'm still asked to come and speak for the spirit of the land, because it's more powerful than all of us put together. And until we understand that we are no match - COVID proved to us that collectively, humans are no match - our economics and science are a load of shit, compared to the power of nature. So if we don't humble ourselves as a human race, then we are kidding ourselves.

Anthony 38:07
And align the systems. Indeed, and we won't get time of course to talk about the work you're doing out on country and others we know

Oral 38:14
I think you did ask me that question. I just didn't get to it.

Anthony 38:17
We can't get to it all, but it does. I mean, you talk about the ways to draw down. There are ways ...

Audience question 38:22
Can you say if there has been any significant changes that will look very closely at the way that fires are managed? We had a bushfire up in the north here as well, the following year, I think and it's almost like we're waiting for the same thing to happen again. Will the practices change to manage that and stop it happening again, or lessen its effect?

Greg 38:44
Unfortunately, I don't see any major changes in practice. And we've advocated for more firefighting aircraft to assist but they don't put fires out, they're not going to stop these fires that are spotting eight to 12 kilometers and sometimes up to 25 kilometers, they're not going to stop fires on catastrophic days that will burn over dirt and burn every bit of material that could possibly burn in that dirt. So the fires will get worse. Really, you know, as Oral said, it's how we look after country - it's going to be how we look after country into the future and yes, there needs to be more burning, but the proper type of burning not lines of fire that actually often bring back species that are more combustible. So it really is a change in mindset. And the fire services and emergency - SES - We're all reeling because we've never seen anything like that - I you know, 50 years of fighting fires and been to France, Spain, Canada, US. Nobody's seen fire like that before and we don't know what to do with it. So this is why action on climate is so crucial, and action on how we look after country and and it's not as we said, I've realized cultural burning, you can't get the local bush fire brigade or fire and rescue and say get your drip torch this is how you burn. No, because they have no knowledge of the systems and the animals and the birds and the plants. You have to have that knowledge of country and we have to respect it and, and respect those 1000s and 1000s of years. So, yeah, unfortunately, we're just licking our wounds after a big hit. And we don't really know what to do, but we've got to get ahead of the game somehow.

Anthony 40:27
I'm gonna have to draw the line aren't I? It pains me to to do this. But we have gone over time. We've got to clear out for the next session, but I wish we could go on with it. And clearly it's seeded more conversations to go on with. Greg's book is on sale out there. And I believe you're gonna sign a few if, if people would like that. Yes. And unfortunately Plants isn't quite ready yet but you'll be able to get that obviously in a couple of weeks time wherever good books are sold, as they say. And for now, thanks to the State Library for having us, Vida on sound, Sharon, Jane, Writing New South Wales and Writing WA teams, outstanding effort bringing this all together. And of course, please give a huge hand for our guests Oral, Lesley and Greg. And thank you for being here. My name is Anthony James. See ya soon.

Anthony 41:16
That was Oral McGuire, Greg Mullins and Lesley Head, On Fire at last month's quantum Words festival in the WA State Library in Boorloo / Perth. For more on the books by Greg and Lesley. And to hear more of oral on this podcast, see the links in our program details. And that's with thanks as always to the generous supporters who've helped make this episode possible. If you're enjoying what you hear, please consider joining this community of supporting listeners so I can keep the podcast going. Just head to the website via the shownotes RegenNarration.com/support. Thanks again. And if you feel like it, share this episode with someone you know who you think might like it. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden off the Regenerating Australia soundtrack. My name is Anthony James. Thanks for listening.