Falling ash, skies of blood - and now Australia's anger smoulders

[Matilda]

The past week has been marked by the refusal of public officials, including PM Scott Morrison, to recognise the scale of the crisis

"The sky over Cobargo in New South Wales was still tainted yellow on Thursday afternoon when Australia’s prime minister arrived. For the past month, the country had been ablaze, and the village 240 miles south of Sydney and home to 776 people, had been hit hard.

"Standing in the crowd, Zoey Salucci McDermott, 20, eyed Scott Morrison coolly. She and her young daughter had lost her home in the fires, so when he extended his hand in greeting, she did not reciprocate. “I’ll only shake your hand if you give more funding to the RFS [Rural Fire Service],” McDermott said, holding back tears. “So many people here have lost their homes. We need more help.” The prime minister turned away."

"As the flames retreated, a white hot anger smouldered. “You’re not welcome, you fuckwit,” a man yelled after Morrison as he retreated under a barrage of insults."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/04/australia-bushfires-week-of-anger-scott-morrison


Morrison (aka Morriscum, Scummo, #Bullshitboy, among other unflattering nicknames), should never have been elected Prime Minister. It only happened because the hard-right of the Party, who are in control, having got rid of Malcolm Turnbull, who was far too Centrist for them, wanted Peter Dutton as PM, but the idea was too horrible for moderates to contemplate, given that he's a reincarnation of a Gestapo leader, and hated outside his home state of Queensland.

So a scheme was hatched to get Morrison in. But from day one, he's proved he's not very capable, setting the shortest timetable for Parliamentary sitting days that anyone can remember, refusing to answer questions in the house, and irritating almost everyone by the continual self-satisfied smirk he wears, while doing nothing at all.

But the bushfires did him in. He is a hard-core climate change denialist, which has a lot to do with his Pentecostal religion and not interfering with God's will in any way, which appears to include dealing with climate change. He couldn't and wouldn't acknowledge the problem, saying only that he was praying for rain, and all would be well. He wouldn't provide more fire trucks, or water-bombing planes, or call in the Defence Force to assist the firies. Then he took himself off to Hawaii for a holiday in the middle of it all. That did it; it was met with fury not only by those who have suffered in the fires, but many others who can only look at the peculiar sky, and donate money to help the firies and try to save animals - doing what the government should be doing with our taxes.

The end result is that it looks like the end for Morrison. He's probably the most hated political leader in our history, and given some of the nutjobs the current government has come up with, that's saying a lot. The big question is: who?

And while Morrison dithers, comedian Celeste Barber started her own fund-raising campaign just a few days ago, and has already raised $30 million dollars to help victims and firies. I doubt Morrison has enough sense to appreciate just how bad that makes him look.