Where the bloody hell is Scott Morrison? Australians asked of their Prime Minister last week.
The country’s fire service is struggling to put out the blazes which have been burning intensely for six weeks, killing eight people, 2,000 koalas and destroying at least 100 homes.
A second state of emergency has also been called after record temperatures were smashed twice on consecutive days last week further fuelling the wildfires.
Indigenous communities now say ancient homelands are becoming uninhabitable, while alarmingly the fire season has barely started.
While his parched country burns, Morrison disappeared on a mystery holiday but was tracked down on social media after his office declined to reveal his location for “security reasons”.
There were also ugly scenes outside his official residence in Sydney after a 13-year-old girl called Izzy, whose house had recently burned down, was left sobbing after police threatened arrest over her climate change protest.
The leader of the Liberal Party was finally spotted in Hawaii after a picture emerged of him on the beach wearing board shorts and giving a thumbs-up. Taking the crisis seriously then, Mr Morrison.
His behaviour, although he has now apologised, is hardly surprising.
While science tells us we must end our relationship with fossil fuels to keep global warming at 1.5C, Morrison is pushing ahead with plans to open up a new coalfield the size of the UK.
Fire chiefs also want to meet him to discuss the role of climate change but he has refused.
At the recent summit in Madrid, Australia found itself alongside Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the USA – unwelcome obstacles to the actions demanded by science.
The tsunami of extreme weather this year started with a record-breaking heatwave in southern Australia, followed by an unprecedented number of cyclones in the Indian Ocean and fires in the Arctic, Amazon and California.
All of this comes with just 1C of global heating.
Despite all this evidence, suffering and destruction there was no mention of a climate emergency in Boris Johnson’s agenda as outlined in the Queen’s Speech.
This year has been one of climate disaster yet our leaders still procrastinate.
