Tim Lee

Biography:
Tim Lee is one of Australia’s best-known and respected agricultural journalists. In a career spanning almost 40 years Tim has worked in regional, newspapers, television and radio. Since 2001 he has been a senior reporter with the ABC’s “Landline” program covering a diverse range of rural and regional topics. He has had a lifelong interest in bushfires (covering them and their aftermath) and forest management and ecology. Tim is in the unique position of having been a summer firefighter during his university days, then going on to report on most of Australia’s major bushfires, including Black Saturday, in the years following. His paper is entitled, “How did we get the message so wrong?” because he feels that despite more modern-day communication and awareness of disasters such as bushfires, the public perception and response to it has become increasingly misguided.