Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison faced enraged hecklers and an angry firefighter in a town ravaged by bushfires, piling pressure on the leader amid an unprecedented crisis that has killed at least 18 people.
A firefighter refused to shake Morrison’s hand when he visited the town of Cobargo in New South Wales state on Thursday.
Video footage showed Morrison trying to grab the man’s hand, who then got up and walked away, sparking an apology from the prime minister. A local fire official explained that the man had lost his house while defending others’ homes.
Photo: AFP
Another man accused Morrison of watching fireworks over Sydney Harbour from his official waterfront mansion, Kirribilli House, while fires raged further south on New Year’s Eve.
“You won’t be getting any votes down here, buddy. You’re an idiot,” the man shouted.
“I don’t see Kirribilli burning after the fireworks,” he screamed.
Morrison said yesterday that he did not take the attacks personally.
“I just see it as a sense of frustration and hurt and loss and anger that is out there about what is the ferocity of these natural disasters,” he told reporters in Bairnsdale in eastern Victoria state.
“And I understand that, and we will seek to provide that comfort and support in whatever way we can,” he said.
Morrison had walked away from a Cobargo woman who urged him to provide more funding to the town and state firefighters.
“This is not fair. We’re totally forgotten about down here. Every single time this area has a flood or a fire, we get nothing,” another woman shouted as Morrison drove away.
Even a state politician from his own Liberal party whose seat is in the region took a swipe at the prime minister.
“To be honest, the locals probably gave him the welcome he probably deserved,” said New South Wales Minister for Transport Andrew Constance.
The prime minister, who won a surprise election victory last May, ended last year on a sour note with fires raging across five states while he took off on a family holiday to Hawaii. Facing criticism, he cut the holiday short and apologized for making a mistake.
He is now considering canceling an official trip to India scheduled for Jan. 13 to 16, due to the fire emergency.
“I’m inclined not to proceed on that visit,” Morrison said yesterday.
Australia’s coal and gas exports, blamed for adding to global climate change and the conditions stoking bushfires, were expected to be high on the agenda for talks in India. Morrison’s government has long supported a controversial coal mine planned by India’s Adani Group in Australia.
A plan by Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party to cap the population at 10 million has the backing of almost half the country, according to a poll before an expected vote next year. The party, which has long campaigned against immigration, argues that too-fast population growth is overwhelming housing, transport and public services. The level of support comes despite the government urging voters to reject it, warning that strict curbs would damage the economy and prosperity, as Swiss companies depend on foreign workers. The poll by newspaper group Tamedia/20 Minuten and released yesterday showed that 48 percent of the population plan to vote
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
RELAXED: After talks on Ukraine and trade, the French president met with students while his wife visited pandas, after the pair parted ways with their Chinese counterparts French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China yesterday in Chengdu, striking a more relaxed note after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) a day earlier. Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan Province. Macron was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century
RSS