Scott Morrison takes Hawaiian holiday while the country burns

Is Scott Morrison taking a Hawaiian holiday while the country burns?

Scott Morrison has skipped out of town, reportedly to Hawaii, at a time when Australians are desperately seeking guidance following a horror few months.

Surely the PM hasn’t forgotten that bushfires continue to rage across our states with several lives already claimed, landscape and wildlife obliterated and hundreds of homes destroyed? Nor that our country is grieving after the recent tragedy in New Zealand’s White Island?

Did he truly believe now was a valid time to duck out? Was this the best “judgement call” he could make?

I use the term “judgement call” because this is in fact the very same phrasing Scott Morrison used when he publicly crucified Victorian police chief Christine Nixon for merely going out for dinner with friends following the black Saturday bushfires.

“She’s clearly made a bad judgement call and it happens to people from time to time but this was a very serious issue and I think there are very serious concerns in the community about exercising judgement,” he declared emphatically on ABC’s Q&A.

What does it say then, when our Prime Minister is sunning himself on Waikiki while our country’s up in smoke?

From where I’m sitting it doesn’t look good.

It looks like a leader out of touch with his constituents and country. It looks like a government too lax to be on the frontline during some of Australia’s most dire times and too engrossed in its own bubble to act in the best interests of the collective.

It’s little surprise that the hashtag #WhereTheBloodyHellAreYou is currently trending across social media.

Morrison didn’t even bother to wave before he left. No one knew his whereabouts until Treasurer Josh Frydenberg confirmed them on Channel 9’s Today show this morning:

“The Prime Minister is overseas with his family,” he said. “He’s having a well deserved break, and obviously it’s been a very busy year. He’ll be back at work shortly.”

But can we imagine, the public outcry (and political attacks) if this was a female leader? She’d be put through the ringer for her failed priorities and lack of perspective. Of course this was true in the case of Christine Nixon who Morrison judged mercilessly for a far lesser crime.

The hypocrisy is mind boggling.

Former fire chief Greg Mullins refrained from criticising Morrison directly during an interview this morning, but his follow up comments were illuminating:

“Look, everybody needs a holiday. I’m not going to comment on what the Prime Minister’s doing, and frankly at the moment, the federal government’s not doing much in this space anyway. So I don’t think it really matters,” he said.

Yes, everybody deserves a holiday. Certainly our first responders and fire fighters should be front in line.

But, Scott Morrison? As the leader of a country in crisis, where the bloody hell are you?

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