Ah, there it is: as expected, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come out to defend his little trip to Sydney over the Father’s Day weekend, saying the criticism he’s been copping for acquiring a travel exemption is “misinformed”.
In case you missed it, Scott Morrison flew to Sydney, a city recording more than 1200 case of COVID-19 every day, on a VIP jet to spend Father’s Day with his family on Sunday, and returned to Canberra on Monday.
Naturally, the travel exemption and tax-payer funded flight necessary for this trip has been met with intense outrage, given how many families spent the holiday separated from their loved ones due to lockdown orders.
I can tell you, as someone who lives alone in one of Sydney’s 12 LGAs of concern, it’s fucking infuriating that I couldn’t see the family member I would spend Father’s Day with (who only lives 6.3km from me), but Scott Morrison can fly interstate.
https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/1434814914032406529?s=20
Labor MP Bill Shorten told Channel Nine he was surprised the PM would go ahead with the trip, given how it looks to those of us struggling under lockdown.
“I was a bit surprised when I read he had done this, to be honest,” Shorten told Channel Nine.
“You can’t have one rule for Mr Morrison and another rule for everyone else. I just think it’s appalling judgement.”
Anyway, Scott Morrison has since said that criticism of his travel arrangements haven’t been fair since it’s leaving Sydney that requires an exemption, not entering.
“I can understand people’s frustration. But I do think there has been a lot of misinformation,” Morrison told Sky News.
“I live in Sydney. I often have to be here [in Canberra] for work. There was no exemption required for me to return home.
“The exemption I require is to come back here to the ACT and, as Prime Minister, of course I need to come back to the ACT.”
Even so, Morrison also received approval from ACT Health to return to Canberra without having to quarantine for two weeks either, as long as certain conditions were met like frequent COVID-19 testing.
I know this joke is beyond old, but I really do wonder what on earth all that empathy training ever actually achieved given these constant fuck-ups from our PM.
