Academics at the University of Tasmania have published a series of thought-provoking articles exploring the role of affordability in Australia’s bushfire management.

David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, is proposing that a Medicare-like system subsidise the cost of fire prevention measures via the public purse. This would be more effective, and potentially no more expensive, than “doing the same thing every year, even though it doesn’t work,” he says.

Fellow academics Kate Booth and Chloe Lucas say a trend for personalised private insurance products only heightens underinsurance issues, favouring those with higher incomes and marginalising those most likely to need cover.

The series of articles, published in The Conversation, are timely after more than 85 homes were lost to an out-of-control blaze north of Perth last week. Underinsurance is entrenching poverty, disadvantage and hardship as Australia’s vulnerable are hit hardest by natural disasters, the publication says.

“This dynamic will worsen as the consequences of unmitigated climate change unfold,” says an article published on Thursday by Ms Booth and Ms Lucas.

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