Australia fires: furious residents jeer PM Scott Morrison when he visits ravaged town
- Eight months after surprise election win, clumsy handling of crisis has brought Morrison’s political honeymoon to an abrupt end
- Fires have taken a huge toll: 19 people are dead and 28 missing, more than 1,000 houses burnt and an area twice the size of Wales has been destroyed
Last month, Australia’s unprecedented wildfire crisis prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to cut short a vacation to Hawaii. It also abruptly ended his political honeymoon.
Eight months after being lauded a conservative hero by engineering an unexpected victory, Morrison’s clumsy handling of the crisis – highlighted by his trip to Hawaii just days after declaring a national disaster – has stoked criticism over his political judgment, including by members of his own party.
The prime minister was heckled on Thursday by angry residents when he visited the bushfire-hit town of Cobargo, where two people died earlier this week, while others declined to shake his hand and called for more resources to tackle the disaster.
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Locals yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse. They jeered as his car left. In the New South Wales town of Quaama, a firefighter refused to shake hands with him.
“Every single time this area has a flood or a fire, we get nothing. If we were Sydney, if we were north coast, we would be flooded with donations, with urgent emergency relief,” a resident said in Cobargo.
Speaking in a television interview from the fire-ravaged area on Friday, Andrew Constance, the transport minister for New South Wales state which is governed by Morrison’s Liberals, said the prime minister “probably deserved” his treatment the previous day.
Australia’s unprecedented wildfire crisis has taken a huge toll: 19 people are dead and 28 missing, more than 1,000 houses burnt, and an area twice the size of Wales has been destroyed in one state alone.
This week produced disturbing footage of thousands of holiday-makers huddled on beaches awaiting rescue, images that have fanned mounting concerns that Morrison’s pro-coal policies are hurting a nation that appears to be suffering the brunt of increasing climate change.
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“I’m not surprised people are feeling very raw at the moment. And that’s why I came today, to be here, to see it for myself, to offer what comfort I could,” Morrison said, adding, “There is still, you know, some very dangerous days ahead. And we understand that, and that’s why we’re going to do everything we can to ensure they have every support they will need.”
Morrison, who has also been criticised over his climate change policies and accused of putting the economy ahead of the environment, insisted that Australia was “meeting the challenge better than most countries” and “exceeding the targets we set out”.
Morrison’s response to the fires that have been burning for months appears similar to George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to Helen Pringle, a researcher at the University of New South Wales who writes about Australian politics.
“Morrison’s messaging has really been off during this whole bushfire disaster,” Pringle said. “He seems to be downplaying it because if he admits to its severity then he understands more people will demand that he takes tougher action on climate change.”
While there have been no opinion polls released in the past month to show whether the reputation of Morrison and his government have taken a real hit among voters, the reaction on social media has been savage. The hashtag #ScottyfromMarketing began trending, a reference to his stint as the former head of Tourism Australia and his inclination to put a positive spin on the crisis.
Cooler weather since Tuesday has aided firefighting and allowed people to replenish supplies, with long lines of cars forming at gas stations and supermarkets. But high temperatures and strong winds are forecast to return on Saturday, and thousands of tourists fled the country’s eastern coast on Thursday ahead of worsening conditions.
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a seven-day state of emergency starting on Friday, which grants fire officials more authority. It’s the third state of emergency for New South Wales in the past two months.
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“We don’t take these decisions lightly, but we also want to make sure we’re taking every single precaution to be prepared for what could be a horrible day on Saturday,” Berejiklian said.
The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has led authorities to rate this season the worst on record. About 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of land have burned, at least 17 people have been killed and more than 1,400 homes have been destroyed.
The crisis “will continue to go on until we can get some decent rain that can deal with some of the fires that have been burning for many, many months,” Morrison said.
In Victoria, where 83 homes have burned this week, the military helped thousands of people who fled to the shoreline as a wildfire threatened their homes in the coastal town of Mallacoota. Food, water, fuel and medical expertise were being delivered, and about 500 people were going to be evacuated from the town by a naval ship.
“We think around 3,000 tourists and 1,000 locals are there. Not all of those will want to leave, not all can get on the vessel at one time,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Smoke from the wildfires made the air quality in the capital, Canberra, the worst in the world, according to a ranking on Thursday.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
