How the Public Thinks About Bushfires in the Sydney Suburbs

Discussions of bushfire management in Australia are usually framed as polarized. The polarization frame holds that there is a deep divide between a “localist ” position calling for a traditional management regime of frequent controlled burning carried out by local people, and an “environmentalist ” position calling for limits on human interference with nature. The research reported in this article examines whether that polarization accurately characterizes the views of a broad cross-section of people in one fire-prone region: the outer suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales. A Q method analysis showed that rather than a localist-environmentalist polarization, there were at least four main viewpoints-- Traditionalists, Responsible Residents, Expert Authorities, and Green Democrats--which had significant areas of commonality among them. A mail survey examined the prevalence of these views. The results of the research suggests that for the general public, the bushfire issue is “detached, ” that is, not central enough to people’s way of life to be shaped into detailed and action-relevant discourses. The polarization noted by other authors may be as much a product of the social context of public policy debate as it is an expression of pre-existing ideological positions