Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack MP, who represents the rural seat of Riverina, is fed up with ignorant inner city greens trying to exploit Australia’s ongoing bushfire catastrophe for political gain.
Deputy PM slams people raising climate change in relation to NSW bushfires
By David Crowe
November 11, 2019 — 8.33amDeputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has slammed the climate change concerns of “raving inner city lunatics” at a time when rural Australians are dealing with catastrophic bushfires, venting his frustration at questions about climate.
“We’ve had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance – they need help, they need shelter,” the Nationals leader told ABC Radio National on Monday after a series of questions about climate change.
“They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time, when they’re trying to save their homes, when in fact they’re going out in many cases saving other peoples’ homes and leaving their own homes at risk.”
Mr McCormack singled out Greens leader Richard Di Natale and Melbourne MP Adam Bandt for “disgraceful” attempts to score political points by using the bushfires to prosecute their agenda on climate change and shut down the coal industry.
“It is disgraceful, it is disgusting and I’ll call it out every time,” he said.
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Asked if he was dismissing concerns about climate change, the Deputy Prime Minister said he was not doing that and the government was addressing climate change.
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There is a lot of hostility towards greens over their opposition to controlled burns to manage fire risk. But there is also significant support from some country politicians for more action on climate change.
There is more than one fire raging in Australia right now.
