Treasurer Joe Hockey has criticised the South Australian premier over a budget cut row that has led to some of the state’s volunteer firefighters refusing to fight bushfires.
The treasurer used a media conference on Friday to launch a scathing attack on Jay Weatherill, who says he’ll block GST reforms unless federal health and education funding cuts are reversed.
“[He] is just acting in a pathetic fashion,” Hockey told reporters in Adelaide.
“He is the nation’s biggest whinger, which is saying something. He’s got to get over it and start focusing on doing his job.”
Weatherill has described the government’s $80bn cuts to school and hospital funding as an act of bad faith that must be reversed before he will engage in debate about the federation.
The state Labor government has used the cuts to justify a number of unpopular budget measures, including a hike to the emergency services levy.
A number of volunteer firefighters have refused to fight bushfires on government land, including national parks, unless discounts to the levy are reinstated.
With catastrophic fire danger forecast in parts of the state on Friday, Hockey said the premier should stop passing the buck on issues of state responsibility.
“He’s got to deal with it, as a leader should,” he said.
Weatherill said the treasurer was clearly out of ideas if he was resorting to personal insults.
“If Joe Hockey equates standing up for South Australia [and] resisting these federal cuts ... with whingeing, then he’s gonna hear plenty more of it,” he told reporters.
