Victoria appears to be almost as hot today as it was back in 1932By Jo NovaDespite the news headlines about the hottest ever heatwave in Victoria this week — old Australian newspapers are mysteriously full of reports of hotter temperatures. Not far away Mildura reached 123 °F (50.6 °C) and to the south, Hopetoun reached 114 °F (45.6 °C). The heat stretched across to Port Augusta which recorded – 119 °F (48.3 °C). As a kind of macabre proxy thermometer, we know the temperature crossed some kind of terrible threshhold when there were piles of dead birds “two feet high”, and stories of people hauling out thousands of dead birds from dams, including in one case, as many as 60,000 dead parrots. The ABC receives a billion dollars a year to tell Australians the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.