BRILLIANT Take On Everything Wrong With Oz PM Morrison, Especially On Climate
Of all the horrors that might befall the burnt out, the flooded, the cyclone ravaged and the drought stricken Australian this summer, perhaps none could be viewed with more dread than turning from their devastated home to see advancing on them a bubble of media in which enwombed is our prime minister, Scott Morrison, arriving, as ever, too late with a cuddle.
It’s fair to say that Morrison has pulled off other roles with more conviction – the shouty Commandant of the Pacific camps perhaps his most heartfelt to date, the Gaslighter-in-Chief his most audacious, his Mini-Me to Donald Trump’s Dr Evil not without tragicomic charge – but sorrowful Father of the Nation has begun to feel a firebreak too far. In Australia we are all now being treated as children, quietened Australians, most especially on the climate crisis. While the climate crisis has become Australians’ number one concern, both major parties play determinedly deaf and dumb on the issue while action and protest about the climate crisis is increasingly subject to prosecution and heavy sentencing.
In Tasmania, the Liberal government intends to legislate sentences of up to 21 years – more than many get for murder – for environmental protest, legislation typical of the new climate of authoritarianism that has flourished under Morrison. As Australia burns, what we are witnessing nationally is no more or less than the criminalisation of democracy in defence of the coal and gas industries. In this regard, the climate crisis is a war between the voice of coal and the voice of the people. And that war is in Australia being won hands down by the fossil fuel industry.
Which brings us back to that industry’s number one salesman, the prime minister, standing there in the ash in the manner of Humphrey B. Bear on MDMA, as, mollied up, he pulls another victim in the early stages of PTSD into his shirt, his odour, his aura – such as it is – and holds them there perhaps just a little too long. Sometimes, at his most perplexing, he lets that overly large head loll on the victim’s shoulder and leaves it there. Prayers and thoughts naturally follow.
EDIT
The same day Morrison went to the Gabba, got photographed with cricketers and tweeted: “Going to be a great summer of cricket, and for our firefighters and fire-impacted communities, I’m sure our boys will give them something to cheer for.” To the question does he think we are that stupid, the answer was implicit in an interview the same day when the prime minister justified not meeting with 23 former fire chiefs and emergency services leaders calling for a climate emergency declaration in April, claiming the government had the advice it needed. He went on to say that: “We’re getting on with the job, preparing for what has already been a very devastating fire season.”
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/25/scott-morrison-and-the-big-lie-about-climate-change-does-he-think-were-that-stupid