Scott Morrison has handled the bushfire crisis the the grace of a newborn deer and has repeatedly dug himself into more trouble by doing things like forcing people to shake his hand while continuing to deny that climate change is a thing.
But just when climate denialism couldn’t get more ridiculous from Scott Morrison and his camp, Liberal MP Craig Kelly has boldly stepped up with such a cringeworthy “hold my beer” performance against Piers Morgan that it’ll be felt for years to come.
Craig Kelly appeared on Good Morning Britain to chat about the Australian bushfires with hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, and things went south almost immediately.
Morgan immediately asked Kelly to explain why he doesn’t believe the bushfires has anything to do with climate change and the Liberal MP doubled down on his ridiculous logic which I won’t repeat here because it’s honestly infuriating.
When Kelly realises he isn’t going to be let off the hook by Morgan, he changes tactics and tries to play the “this is just people using the bushfires to push their agenda” card.
“To try and make out, as some politicians have done, and to hijack this debate, to exploit this tragedy, to push their ideological barrow that somehow or another, the Australian government could have done something by reducing its carbon emissions, that would have reduced these bushfires, is just complete nonsense.”
Scott Morrison wasn’t let off the hook either by Morgan. When asked why Scotty bailed on the bushfires for an early holiday to Hawaii, Kelly tried to pin the firefighting responsibility on the states and the state premiers.
Reid wasn’t having any of it and interrupted by saying how “it’s a national emergency” and how “you’d expect the national leader to take charge and not fly out of the country.”
Before Kelly could try and put up another pitiful defence, Morgan hit back with a scathing truth bomb directed at both him and ol’ mate Scotty:
“The truth is he was absent when the fires were burning.
“The truth is, he was absent when the fires were burning. Scott Morrison thought the right response to these fires erupting in Australia was to go lie on the beach in Hawaii. That was a dereliction of his duty as leader of Australia.
“You’re facing now one of the greatest crises you’ve ever faced and there is you, Mr Kelly, with respect, a senior politician who still doesn’t think this doesn’t have anything to do with the heating of our planet, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about as virtually your entire country is eviscerated by fires.”
If you want to see how a trainwreck unfolds over the span of seven minutes, check out the Good Morning Britain interview with Craig Kelly, Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid right here.
You honestly have to wonder where we went wrong to end up at this point where a Liberal MP like Craig Kelly is getting airtime to sprout his climate change denialism, and a right-wing idiot like Piers Morgan ends up becoming the voice of reason while giving our PM an earful for not doing his job properly.
What a world we live in right now where Scott Morrison and our government is viewed as nothing more than an international joke, and by someone who is renowned for being a massive joke no less.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.