Current Events > Yes, Trump is bad, but Australia's prime minister is arguably worse.

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https://www.dw.com/en/australia-scott-morrison-apologizes-for-vacation-at-crisis-time/a-51745983

Dude literally took off for a vacation when his country was literally burning down.

Even Trump wouldn't do something so callous.

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Trump has been on vacation for like a third of his term

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imagine using that to troll
good job tc

what tag do you want "terrible at trolling" or "usually warned/suspended"?

I have never trolled a day in my life.

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squee posted...

what tag do you want "terrible at trolling" or "usually warned/suspended"?

No, Trump did do that. He took a vacation when Hurricane Maria wrecked Puerto Rico. And was super slow to help the island.
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Mr_Rian posted...

No, Trump did do that. He took a vacation when Hurricane Maria wrecked Puerto Rico. And was super slow to help the island.

Did he also de-fund the emergancy services that would handle that situation before it happened?
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From an outside perspective the Australia thing seems to amount to aussies wanting to blame a human being for the weather.

I get the climate change aspect but all of this would be happening in Australia regardless of who won the last 20 elections.

Rika_Furude posted...

Did he also de-fund the emergancy services that would handle that situation before it happened?

Didn't he defund the Californian firefighters last year?

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he's garbage but nowhere near as bad as trump

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Rika_Furude posted...

Did he also de-fund the emergancy services that would handle that situation before it happened?

Not exactly. He has taken money from FEMA for his border wall, but that was well after the hurricane. But surprisingly he did threaten to de-fund California over their wildfires.
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Rika_Furude posted...

Did he also de-fund the emergancy services that would handle that situation before it happened?

No he waited for it to happen then did it and tried to paint fire fighters as being responsible for the fires and calling himself a hero

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Did the Aussie PM commit serious warcrimes too?

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RedWhiteBlue posted...

There's a very real chance it wouldn't be so severe if their fire departments weren't defunded and fire chiefs ignored for several months just because they used the term "climate change," causing the PM to basically tell them to fuck off.

This is an absurd argument given the size of Australia, how sparsely populated it is, and the climate that Australia has always had. If you quadrupled the number of firefighters and tripled their pay the fires would still happen. What is happening in Australia is basically the public turning on their leader because of bad weather and climate scientists holding their nose and joining the bandwagon even though they know it is ridiculous they realize that it is easier to get people to take action on climate change if you pretend like "the weather has been bad therefore the leader has lost the mandate of heaven" type shit works while actually explaining that 90% of events like this would happen in Australia climate change or not and 99.99% of these events would happen no matter who was elected Prime Minister.

The way Australian are reacting it seems like they actually believe that the climate gods will spare them the effects of fire and drought if they make offerings and embrace green energy. Its ridiculous.

Atralis posted...

This is an absurd argument given the size of Australia, how sparsely populated it is, and the climate that Australia has always had. If you quadrupled the number of firefighters and tripled their pay the fires would still happen.

And climate change naturally happens too. Doesn't mean it's cool if we pump pollutants into the sky and speed it up.

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I'm so tired of people using literally figuratively. Unless there is a pile of ash where Sydney used to be, then I apologize TC.

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hockeybub89 posted...

And climate change naturally happens too. Doesn't mean it's cool if we pump pollutants into the sky and speed it up.

Climate change happens but it isn't the only reason there are droughts or fires in Australia of all places. An increased likelyhood of certain events occurring means that every fire, hurricane, etc for the rest of our lives we are going to shriek about it happening because of the bad people?

Atralis posted...

An increased likelyhood of certain events occurring means that every fire, hurricane, etc for the rest of our lives we are going to shriek about it happening because of the bad people?

Yes

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Is anyone else getting flashbacks of the episode of The Witcher about the lesser evil? I'm totally getting that vibe from this topic.

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Trump is no slouch when it comes to climate inaction.
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mustachedmystic posted...

I'm so tired of people using literally figuratively. Unless there is a pile of ash where Sydney used to be, then I apologize TC.

At this rate, give it a few more weeks.

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Atralis posted...

This is an absurd argument given the size of Australia, how sparsely populated it is, and the climate that Australia has always had. If you quadrupled the number of firefighters and tripled their pay the fires would still happen. What is happening in Australia is basically the public turning on their leader because of bad weather and climate scientists holding their nose and joining the bandwagon even though they know it is ridiculous they realize that it is easier to get people to take action on climate change if you pretend like "the weather has been bad therefore the leader has lost the mandate of heaven" type shit works while actually explaining that 90% of events like this would happen in Australia climate change or not and 99.99% of these events would happen no matter who was elected Prime Minister.

The way Australian are reacting it seems like they actually believe that the climate gods will spare them the effects of fire and drought if they make offerings and embrace green energy. Its ridiculous.

Scott Morrison's big moment before being Prime Minister was bringing coal into Parliament and saying it isn't scary. He has ignored the RFS calls for meetings all throughout last year to prepare for the fire season. His first official recognition of the bushfires was stating that the cricket was going to be good for firefighters. He went on a vacation overseas while saying it wasn't his job to hold a hose. He wrote an article for New Years Day telling Australians not to worry so much and that our country is a great place to raise kids. He ordered military action to help with the fires but failed to inform the RFS about it. They found out when he released a PR video about his response to the fires.

Nobody is blaming him for the fires. They're criticizing his attitude and reaction to them. Morrison doesn't want to talk about climate change because he is focused on supporting the coal industry. This means he cannot treat this as a problem and consistently downplays what is happening. The Liberal Party line is to claim that bushfires are a part of Australian life and that we can't do anything about it. They have not once referenced that this year is the worst fire season on record and it is consistently getting worse. Never mind actually presenting any ideas to make our country safer for the future.
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Scott Morrison is a balding, squat, evangelical little prick, and he's had blunder after blunder during these bushfires. He went down to fire-stricken areas for a photo op, just grabbing people's hands and giving them a pat on the back while they beg him for help or tell him he's not welcome there. He doesn't listen to anything, he just blunders around and has his cronies deal with the rabble when they inevitably turn against him.

But are you really going to say that the leader of the free world, the man who's spent at least 112 days on the job playing golf and who's currently targeting 52 important cultural areas in Iran after assassinating one of their generals is a better man than the blithering buffoon Australia has? I hate ScoMo, he's the worst PM since Tony Abbott and Tony Abbott is scum. But frankly, he isn't as much of a fuck-up as Donald Trump. Very few leaders are as big of a fuck-up as Donald Trump.

The kindest praise I can give right now is that Australia would objectively be a worse place if a sack of shit like Trump was in charge. We had an entrepreneur run last year, that fatcat prick Clive Palmer, but thankfully he got shot down. Scott Morrison fucking sucks, Australia is already worse off for electing him as our leader - but by fuck, he's slightly better scum than the drain slime you guys have, sending you into war with Iran. When Scott Morrison deliberately fucks with another nation to trigger an armed conflict, I'll let you know. Until then - at a bare fucking minimum compared to Donald Trump - Australia is in better hands.

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Yeah Trump is significantly worse. He was a horrible person even before he became President.

Morrison is overall a typical spineless and corrupt conservative politician who skates by appealing to being 'fiscally responsible' and to Christian fundamentalists. He isn't anything special at all. He'd be a dime a dozen in America.
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Darmik posted...

Yeah Trump is significantly worse. He was a horrible person even before he became President.

Morrison is overall a typical spineless and corrupt conservative politician who skates by appealing to being 'fiscally responsible' and to Christian fundamentalists. He isn't anything special at all. He'd be a dime a dozen in America.

I mean, he's no Malcolm Turnbull. Not a fan of the Liberal party whatsoever, but I could respect that Malcolm Turnbull could keep his head down and get shit done without the petty Liberal shit-flinging of Abbott and Morrison. Even if the Liberal policies sucked, I think Turnbull could lead Australia in a time of crisis, and people would respect him more because he actually acts like someone worth respecting.

Scott Morrison is a shade removed from Peter Dutton, but he's absolutely around the bottom of the Liberal barrel. In the history books of the Liberal party, Morrison will go down as scum - right next to Tony Abbott. I don't have any love in my heart for this prick - the Liberal party needs to split from the Nationals and put someone forward who's, at the very least, disciplined and well-meaning. They had that in Turnbull, and they threw it away.

Morrison isn't as much of an oaf as Donald Trump, but he's undoubtedly one of Australia's worst prime ministers.

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Didn't bush go on excessive golf trips?

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Turnbull is okay. He was unfortunately strangled by the other morons in the Liberal Party and people like Alan Jones because he wasn't conservative enough. Ugh.

But yeah ScoMo somehow manages to be the most utterly useless Prime Minister I've ever seen and he just started. Even Abbott would manage to cough up some positive PR during a bushfire by getting his hands dirty. Scott can't even figure that out. He thinks his religious lifestyle and a 'she'll be right' attitude is enough.
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Boris Johnson: Hold my tea, mate.

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