Holidays and Church whilst Australia Burns

In case you are not aware, the head of our country has taken himself on holiday. He is out of contact – although supposedly still being sent daily briefings.

There would normally be nothing at all wrong with that, except that there is a national crisis – we have had months of bushfires burning through swathes of country to unprecedented levels.

And the head of our country is nowhere to be seen and remains silent.

Or is he?

Some say he deserves some quiet time with his family at Xmas. I agree, but if you are elected leader of a country, are you not on standby, 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

Would you not want to support your people in a time of crisis?

Nurses, Doctors, Hotel Housekeepers, hell even Taxi drivers have to work over Christmas, so why not the leader of our country? Someone that has given himself a big fat pay rise of late, when the rest of Australia waits six or more years for a pay rise. Six years.

Some say the P.M. has gone to New York to open a Hillsong church there – his faith is admirable, but how is this more relevant than our country?

Is he serving our country to the best of his ability or massaging his own ego?

Over 800 folks have lost their homes to fire in the last months. Rural fire Service folks, often volunteers themselves, have not had a day off in months. They are soent, exhausted and get NO pay, but the P.M. is entitled to a holiday, on full pay to open a church in New York?

It makes my blood boil!

I was discussing this with another blogger, Snow on her blog who wondered why we can’t boot him out of his job for this. We can’t kick him out as he hasn’t done anything wrong – legally. Morally – yes, there is an error in his judgement, however, he enjoys the full support of his cabinet ministers, so any repercussion is unlikely.

This is the same Prime minister who brought a lump of coal into parliament to show his support for maintaining coal fired power generation sources!

https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video

His government believes coalfired power is still the way forward because it is so very cheap to produce here and supports lots of jobs.

But the shift in public opinion is building. The youth in Australia want action on Climate change and they know burning fossil fuels is not good for our planet.

In the meantime, the only thing burning at the moment is Australia and Australian homes. And the #AussieNero sits idly by.

Smoke alarms are being triggered in our nation’s capital, Canberra, such is the poor air quality from bushfires.

Sydney suffers with a constant smoke haze and I can even smell it up here in the North, 800 km away.

Last year, the Amazon and Columbia suffered through many fires. The land in many areas is becoming drier and the rainfall is dimishing. This year, even the Monsoon rains in Indonesia have not yet arrived.

With lower rainfall, the soil becomes ignited far more easily from a stray cigarette butt, or a deliberate back burning off operation, or other accidental or deliberate causes.

The high winds that accompany climate changes fans any bushfires to catastrophic levels.

And the rainfall needed to saturate the ground does not come.

Here is a recent map of the fires across Australia from abc.net.au

And still the P.M. is silent. I hope the New Yorkers realize the price our country is paying.

Perhaps they might even say a prayer.

Well may we say, #wherethebloodyhellareyou Mr Morrison.