Opinion

I was there for the 2003 fires. Let's not let the same thing happen again

Ebony Bennett
Updated July 2 2021 - 2:43am, first published November 18 2019 - 4:30am

I was a cub reporter working in the press gallery for the Sydney Morning Herald when bushfires engulfed Canberra in 2003, claiming four lives and almost 500 homes. It's seared in my memory, as I'm sure it is for a lot of Canberrans. I've been thinking about it a lot this week, as the Deputy Prime Minister wrote off anyone with the temerity to discuss bushfires and climate change in the same breath as "raving inner-city lunatics".

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Ebony Bennett

Ebony Bennett

Canberra Times columnist

Ebony Bennett is deputy director for The Australia Institute and a former Greens media advisor and a regular columnist for The Canberra Times.

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