The Australian climate has interceded in national politics more than once.
Malcolm Fraser went to the electorate in 1983 at the height of one of the harshest droughts on record.
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Tony Burke, federal Labor's environment spokesman, visited the site of the massive fish kill at Menindee.
Credit: Tony Burke
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Just weeks ahead of the 1983 election, the Ash Wednesday bushfires killed 75 people in Victoria and South Australia, destroyed more than 3700 buildings and resulted in the death of an estimated 340,000 sheep.
The government could not be blamed but there were some within the Liberal Party that argued Malcolm Fraser had been blamed for everything – including the drought.
That was, perhaps, brought home when within a fortnight of Bob Hawke's victory, record-breaking rains fell across the parched landscape.
In 1991 the NSW government declared a state of emergency after a 1000km blue-green algal bloom erupted down the Darling River.
The pictures of the bloom, and the public demand for action they elicited, forced governments across the Murray-Darling basin to take the first steps towards better management of our water systems.
The 2007 election was not marred by environmental disaster but climate – and the Howard government's response to climate change – became a hammer blow used by Kevin Rudd.
Less than three years later it was Rudd being hammered. The man who declared climate change the great moral, social and economic challenge was gone after he failed rise to the challenge he had identified.
Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull continued the climate change wars, both succumbing to wounds inflicted by themselves and others. And when Scott Morrison replaced Turnbull, the new PM's first visit was to drought-afflicted Queensland before assembling a "drought summit".
Now 14 weeks out from the expected May federal election, the environment has interceded in the political debate again.
The pictures, video and social media posts of the fish kill around Menindee on the Darling River have been visceral.
Images of old and angry fishermen and farmers, holding up the rotting carcasses of Murray cod have been beamed into the nation's lounge rooms or on to our smart phones.
In the face of criticism from those fishermen, farmers and locals, the Morrison government has effectively said "let's hope for rain" and "it's the drought".
The problem with that argument is that it may very well be exposed by a South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling and its management.
In less than a fortnight, the royal commission started by then SA Premier Jay Weatherill is due to report.
The evidence to it, particularly about the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, has been compelling.
And the findings may be as politically toxic as those rotting fish in the Darling.
In his final address, senior counsel assisting the commission Richard Beasley did not hold back in his criticisms of the MDBA and its political masters who are scattered across the federal, NSW, Queensland, SA and Victorian spheres.
Describing issues of "maladministration" and "unlawfulness", Beasley sheeted home blame to those in charge.
"The implementation of the [Murray-Darling] basin plan has been marred by maladministration. By that I mean mismanagement by those in charge of the task in the basin authority, its executives and its board, and the consequent mismanagement of huge amounts of public funds," he said.
"The responsibility for that maladministration and mismanagement falls on both past and current executives of the MDBA and its board."
The commission heard evidence of how problems setting the amount of water put aside for the environment started under the Rudd government and have continued ever since. That includes the past six years of oversight by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government.
The coalition, particularly the National Party, was always more interested in modernising the irrigation systems across the Murray-Darling rather than buying allocations direct from willing sellers.
A draft report from the Productivity Commission found the government's preferred process has been extremely expensive – upgrading irrigation pipes and drains is twice the cost of buying water on the open market.
While the PC found the upgrade irrigation system process has "lessened" the socio-economic costs of directing water to the environment, it too was just as damning as Beasley to the royal commission.
It noted that the evidence so far was that while the process had provided "a number of private benefits for irrigators" this had failed to sustain regional farming communities.
Like those rotting fish, the PC's final report is just waiting to go off. Delivered to the government last month, the report has to be made public soon – almost about the same time as the royal commission reports to the SA government.
Scott Morrison needs almost everything to go right for him to win this year's election.
There are those things he can control directly, such as government policy; there are those things he has to target, such as Bill Shorten and Labor's overall policy agenda; and then there are those issues that come from left field.
Scientists have been warning for decades about the problems facing our most important inland water system, so it's difficult to claim the events playing out on the Darling are truly a surprise.
But the footage of men holding aloft dead Murray cod while surrounded by rotting carp, yellowbelly and bony bream was not expected. Nor the record temperatures of recent days which has turned parts of NSW, Victoria and South Australia into fan-forced ovens.
It may be just another sign of how the natural environment, if ignored for too long, finds a way to seep into the national political discourse.
Links
- 'Drought, Climate Change And Mismanagement': What Experts Think Caused The Death Of A Million Menindee Fish
- Water Minister gets online threats as video of mass fish kill goes viral
- Why last week's NSW mass fish death could be just the beginning
- Experts warn rotting fish could trigger more deaths if not cleaned quickly
- A million fish dead in 'distressing' outback algal bloom
- Darling River mass fish kill could impact other states
- Dead fish in 'rotten' far-western NSW river sparks concerns about water quality
- 'The water is absolutely putrid': 10,000 fish dead in Darling River as water quality declines
- Cotton industry 'not whipping boy' in mass fish death stoush
