“Fake news” is rarely just making things up and telling straight-out lies. In fact, the most insidious forms of fake news are “misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual”, especially via misleading headlines and biased or slanted reporting.
The Guardian has gone full Fake News in its shameful determination to smear Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.
The prime minister has rejected calls for more help for firefighters as the New South Wales bushfire crisis is expected to worsen.
Wow. That sounds pretty bad. In fact, it’s a classic case of fake news. The truth is hidden deep in the Guardian’s hatchet job.
Asked about concerns over how long the tens of thousands of volunteer firefighters – many who have been away from work for weeks now – were expected to continue without pay, Morrison said they “want to be there”.
In other words, Morrison was specifically asked about paying volunteers. This is rightly rejected – and not just by Morrison. The very definition of a volunteer precludes payment. The topic has been raised with volunteer firefighters before, and angrily rejected. Volunteer firefighters – as I well know, having been one – aren’t in it for the money. As Morrison rightly said, we “want to be there”.
He rejected suggestions that volunteer firefighters – who reportedly make up the largest volunteer firefighting force in the world – should be professionalised.
“The volunteer effort is a big part of our natural disaster response and it is a big part of how Australia has always dealt with these issues,” Morrison said.
“We are constantly looking at ways to better facilitate the volunteer effort, but to professionalise that at that scale is not a matter that has previously been accepted and it’s not currently under consideration by the government.”
Vols are also well aware that “professionalised” is sinister double-speak. The socialist Andrews set off a public firestorm when it tried to “professionalise” the proudly volunteer Country Fire Authority. “Professionalise” was a code for the CFA being taken over, root and branch, by the Melbourne-based professional firefighter’s union.
There are reports of RFS brigades crowdfunding or seeking donations for water and food for those in the field.
Morrison did not address that and he rejected suggestions there was more the federal government could do. He said state governments get everything they request from the commonwealth, whether that was logistics and support or assistance from the Australian defence force.
“There are reports” is mealy-mouthed journalese for “some reporter heard a rumour on Twitter”. Of course, Morrison wasn’t going to dignify it with an answer.
The government has rejected a call from the independent MP Andrew Wilkie to use air force transport planes to waterbomb.
Wilkie is that most odious of political leeches, an inner-city greenie talking through his arse.
Morrison said there already was a “nationally coordinated effort” which he did not think could go any higher.
“It’s led by a cabinet minister who reports directly to me and I deal with it directly with the premiers of the states and chief ministers of the territories,” he said.
The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (Afac) said cross-state firefighting resources were funnelled and distributed across the country where they had been requested, by its national resource sharing centre.
theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/10/scott-morrison-rejects-calls-for-more-help-saying-volunteer-firefighters-want-to-be-there
As always happens in a disaster, the creeps, liars and shameless opportunists of politics and the legacy media immediately seek to exploit tragedy for their own shallow ends.