Scott Morrison stands by Liberal ad promoting Australian government's bushfire response
Scott Morrison stands by Liberal ad promoting government's bushfire response
Here's the advertisement itself: https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP/status/1213330419044638722
For the non-Aussies, and for the Aussies who aren't political tragics like me... the reason everyone's up in arms is that this video has been released by the Liberal Party, not by the Australian government. We can tell by the "Authorised by" statement in the final frame. Government information comes with the Commonwealth coat of arms and says "Authorised by the Australian Government, Canberra". Party political advertisements have to be "authorised by" someone within the political party. In other words, this is a political ad, not a government press release. The Liberal Party (not the government!) is promoting itself on the basis of what the government is doing for the bushfires.
Scott Morrison has already been an utter failure during this crisis. He went on holiday after the fires started. He's done as little as possible since he returned. And people have noticed. People have abused him when he turned up to visit their town. People have literally refused to shake his hand (but he grabs their hands and shakes them anyway!).
But, despite all this wrong-footedness, this new advertisement is the most tone-deaf thing he's done (so far!). It reflects his background in marketing. Everything's a message for him. Unfortunately for him, the message here is "I'm using your suffering to promote myself".
Scott Morrison has fucked up yet again.
I fear Australians will have short memories of this period. The Murdoch media empire can kick into gear when needed and swamp out any memory that this happened with articles about how the Labor party is going to confiscate your Ute and BBQ.
This is a clear as day example of what you get from a Conservative government. Cuts to crucial services and institutions that puts money in the hands of the rich right away but doesn’t blow up in the public’s face for months, years, or decades.
This guy is surely going to be looked back on as one of the worst prime ministers in Australia's history. Sadly as @thundergolfer outlines, it's easy for the Murdoch empire to employ propaganda to bouy public opinion long enough that most people don't realise this until years later.
In fact, as young-ish a New Zealander, I genuinely can't remember a time in my life when Australia had a stable government; and in recent years, it feels like Australia is less and less like a brother to NZ, and more like right-wing America-lite.
He had time to make an ad about defence force support (which is against the rules btw, the ADF should not be used in partisan advertising), but he didn't have time to tell the NSW fire commissioner about it (he learnt from the media reports).
Ever since he got back from Hawaii, he has transparently been struggling to restore his image (rather than actually help), and every stupid empty gesture has backfired and just shown Australia how clueless he really is. He deserved to be abused in Cobargo, he was obviously just turning up to shake some hands for the cameras. Does he think he is some kind of celebrity? These people have lost their homes and gone through trauma, they don't want empty platitudes and a handshake from the national leader, they want leadership and help.
I'll go you one better on what a vile twerp Scott Morrison is - this just made the U.S. papers.
Just for reference, there've been multiple efforts to ban boycotts throughout the English-speaking world, starting with legislation against boycotting Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territory, and now including bans against organised boycotts against climate changing industries, like coal and oil production.
The proposed boycott ban is nonsensical as even the augustly conservative Financial Times is calling for disinvestment in fossil fuels. Others have commented on just how aggressively authoritarian boycott bans and protest crackdowns are, and what a buffoon Morrison is for even broaching them.
There's a lot of evidence for Scott Morrison not getting things right - that boycott ban is just one of them.
However, the current bushfire crisis has shown just how vapid and empty this Prime Minister is. Suddenly, he's required to do more than just sit in an office. Suddenly, he's required to take action. But he just doesn't have it in him. He's ideologically opposed to government intervention (that's one of the main policy planks of our Liberal Party). He's highly religious, which means he tends to want to leave things to God. And he tends to think in terms of messages rather than outcomes. All this combines to leave him unable and unwilling to do things.
More relevantly, he's the man who, as Treasurer, famously brandished a lump of coal on the floor of Parliament. He's a Prime Minister who's hamstrung by a small group within his government who deny the science anthropogenic climate change. He's the Prime Minister who went to a climate change conference last month and successfully blocked (with the help of Brazil. China, Saudi Arabia, and USA) the adoption of a global carbon trading regime, because he wanted Australia to be able to use accounting credits from a previous climate change agreement to fulfil its requirements in future climate change agreements.
Boycott bans are only a blip on the radar when it comes to Scott Morrison and his government. We've got much bigger problems than that.
Worse in a way, is that this has highlighted that he's unable to even pretend to act.
Even Abbott donned firefighting gear to get in amongst the firies in a moment of pure opportunism. Morrison couldn't even manage that.
How disconnected from reality is this person, that he doesn't understand why fire-torn country towns weren't tripping over themselves to relish in a glorious handshake from the almighty prime minister descended from the safety of waterfront Kirribilli?
Tony Abbott is an actual volunteer firefighter. He's been doing it for nearly 20 years. He was doing it before he became Prime Minister, kept doing it while he was a Minister, and while he was Prime Minister, and is still doing it. There's nothing opportunistic about him donning fire-fighting gear.
Fair enough then.