Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been left red-faced after he was refused a handshake by a heroic fireman who lost his home while battling bushfires in one of Australia’s worst hit areas.
The embarrassing moment was caught by watching camera crews who filmed as the Australian leader walked over to the fireman who was having a break in the emergency centre in Cobargo, on the New South Wales South Coast, on Thursday.
In the footage, Mr Morrison can be seen trying to shake the fireman’s hand, however, the man only looks at Mr Morrison’s hand before shaking his head.
‘I don’t really want to shake your hand,’ the fireman says.
Mr Morrison then leans down to grab the fireman’s hand but he again refuses. The prime minister then walks away – patting the man’s shoulder as he leaves.
‘Oh, well. Nice to see you,’ Mr Morrison can be heard saying.
Mr Morrison was later heard telling a fire official: ‘Tell that fella I’m really sorry, I’m sure he’s just tired.’
‘No, no, he’s lost a house,’ the incident controller tells him.
The stunning scenes come just moments after Mr Morrison was abused by Cobargo residents who told him he ‘should be ashamed of himself’ while others called him ‘Scum-mo’ for ‘leaving the country to burn’.
Tourists and residents have been told to evacuate a 250km stretch of the New South Wales south coast (pictured) as devastating bushfires threaten the area, along with an area of the Shoalhaven between Burrill Lake north and Nowra
One local refused to shake Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s hand until he offered more support to volunteer firefighters
Mr Morrison can be seen trying to shake the fireman’s hand, however, the man only looks at Mr Morrison’s hand before shaking his head. ‘I don’t really want to shake your hand,’ the fireman says
Cobargo is one of the areas worst affected town’s ravaged by the bushfire crisis, which has killed 18 people, razed 1,298 homes and destroyed more than 3.6million hectares of land.
The small town lost its entire main street, a beloved father and son were killed, and dozens of homes were destroyed as the fire front swept through on New Year’s Eve.
Mr Morrison travelled to Cobargo on Thursday to meet with residents who had lost everything – but he was greeted with fury by many angry residents.
One woman also refused to shake his hand until the prime minister offered more support to volunteer firefighters.
‘I’m only shaking your hand if you give more funding to our RFS,’ the woman said.
Instead, Mr Morrison picked up her hand and shook it himself, before turning his back on her mid-sentence and moving on to another person.
‘So many people have lost their homes,’ the woman said, while holding back tears.
She was consoled by another man as Mr Morrison walked away. She shouted after him saying: ‘We need more help.’
Footage of the incident was described as ‘disturbing’ on social media.
A supplied image obtained on Thursday, January 2, 2020, shows smoke billowing from a fire burning at East Gippsland, Victoria
‘What is most disturbing about this extraordinary video is our PM forcing a young, clearly distressed woman to shake his hand followed by another male putting his arms around her telling her to ”shush”,’ one woman wrote.
‘Proud of people in Cobargo for speaking their mind on how they’ve been treated! What does ScoMo do? Walk away from real people with real issues affecting them now. Disgusting.’
‘I can understand him leaving when the men got aggressive but I can’t believe he walked away from the woman pleading for help,’ another added.
Another woman from the town, who brought her pet goat along to the meeting, told Mr Morrison the small town was ‘forgotten’ during the crisis.
‘This is not fair,’ she shouted. ‘We are totally forgotten down here. Every single time this area gets a flood or a fire we get nothing.’
‘If we lived in Sydney or on the North Coast we would be flooded with donations and emergency relief.’
A Cobargo resident, Gary Hinton, looks lost as he stands by rubble after a fire tore through the town on New Years Eve
The PM made a beeline back to his car and was driven away by his security team shortly after arriving in Cobargo – where he was heckled by locals
Mr Morrison was shamed on Twitter for how he handled the situation when he was heckled in Cobargo
This image shows smoke and flames crowning above the treetops at a fire in East Gippsland on January 2nd
In this satellite image, the Clyde Mountain Fire south of Sydney could be seen from outer space
The PM didn’t find any additional support with the rest of the crowd which had gathered on Thursday.
Another shouted: ‘You won’t be getting any votes down here buddy. Who votes Liberal around here? Nobody.’
‘You control the funding, and we were forgotten,’ a woman added.
‘Go on, p*ss off.’
Shortly after arriving, the PM made a beeline back to his car and was driven away by his security team, looking slightly downtrodden as he left the hecklers behind.
Even as he left, furious residents continued to shout at his car, calling him names and asking why his home of Kirribilli wouldn’t burn down.
‘Go home to Kirribilli. Why won’t that burn down after the fireworks?’ another local yelled.
Eerie photos show the once quiet country town destroyed by fires as the sky turns a deep red and buildings are left torn apart
COBARGO SURVIVOR IS FORCED TO SHOOT BADLY-BURNED CATTLE
Steve Shipton (centre) is consoled by fellow farmers Bernie Smith (left) and Peter Mercieca
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
In an area where four people perished in a ferocious fire, Steve Shipton’s eyes were burning as he tried to save his home.
‘I thought I was a goner,’ the Coolagolite cattle farmer told AAP.
‘The heat was horrendous. My eyes… I couldn’t see 20 feet last night.’
The Countegany/Dampier State Forest blaze raced through Cobargo and Coolagolite on Tuesday morning on its way to burning an area twice the size of Canberra.
Three men and an unidentified person died out of a population of about 1050.
Mr Shipton thought he was fine to protect his home after getting his wife and kids inside and his stock out to a dirt clearing.
‘It all happened so quick,’ the 46-year-old said, soot still covering his face.
‘I stayed out. I suppose I shouldn’t have but it just happened so fast.
‘It’s just unbelievable. The ferocity and how quick…. That’s what shocked me and that’s why I thought we were in a good situation to survive,’ he said.
The dairy-turned-beef farmer estimates he lost about a tenth of his 250-odd head of cattle, including his favourite dairy cow.
The dairy-turned-beef farmer estimates he lost about a tenth of his 250-odd head of cattle, including his favourite dairy cow
Most of the cattle had been where Mr Shipton thought would be safe – on dirt with a feed rack – but the animals ‘obviously panicked’.
A vet on Wednesday assessed which would survive and which needed to be euthanised, leaving Mr Shipton with the grim task of carrying out a mass mercy killing.
‘There are some in there badly scorched,’ Mr Shipton said.
‘He’ll know better than me what can survive and what can’t because I’ve never been through this scenario.
‘You don’t want them to suffer.’
The firefront spared Cobargo artist Sally Wilson’s shop but embers took hold of the historic property as she and her partner Christopher Lee protected their home and animals a short walk away.
A vet on Wednesday was assessing which would survive and which needed to be euthanised
As things calmed down at home, Mr Lee walked over to the shop to find it alight.
‘The firefighters said it had started 20 minutes before,’ she told AAP, standing beside the rubble.
‘He stood out the front and watched it burn.’
The couple moved to Cobargo just 18 months ago after deciding it was ‘a really safe pocket’ with a vibrant, caring community.
‘I’ve been visiting here for years and it was like nothing could get you,’ she said.
Local farmer Greg Tett said the community was a very tight-knit one, where people ‘dove in’ to help those whose chips were down.
Destroyed buildings are seen in Cobargo, New South Wales, on Wednesday, January 1, 2020
‘That’s the way it’s been for a long time and why I think a lot of people like to come here,’ he told AAP.
He suspects he’ll have to entirely de-stock after 95 per cent of his 110-acre property was scorched.
‘At least we’re still alive,’ his wife Karen Tett said.
Mr Tett woke about 1am on Tuesday to a phone call from his daughter warning about the approaching fire.
His brother spent five hours building a fire break in vain.
‘When it came down the mountain, we had spot fires everywhere,’ Mr Tett said.
He said his family will fight on.
‘We’ve got to.’
‘You’re an idiot.’
The community is mourning the loss of dairy farmer Patrick Salway, 29, and his father Robert, 63, who died after desperately trying to save their home from the blaze.
Their bodies were found by Mr Salway’s wife Renee who is expecting the couple’s second child.
Mr Morrison later told the ABC he wasn’t ‘surprised people are feeling very raw at the moment.
‘And, that’s why I came today, to be here, to see it for myself; offer what comfort I could.
‘But you can’t always in every circumstance, I think everyone understands that,’ he said.
The disastrous visit comes as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a week long state of emergency ahead of Saturday’s predicted catastrophic conditions.
Patrick Salway, 29, (pictured with his pregnant wife Renee) died fighting the fires in Cobargo alongside his dad Robert Salway
This picture taken on December 31, 2019 shows a firefighter hosing down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town of Nowra on the NSW south coast
Residents met in the Mallacoota town hall on Thursday afternoon (pictured) for an evacuation briefing by defence force officials, after the town was surrounded by flames
Temperatures are expected to hit 46C in some parts of the state and paired with strong winds make for potentially disastrous conditions.
A state of emergency relinquishes decisionmaking powers from the government to the head of the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Thousands of people will be subject to forced evacuations as officials scramble to move holidaymakers and locals alike from dangerous areas.
Catastrophic conditions which fanned blazes on the New South Wales south coast and in eastern Victoria on Wednesday will return within 48 hours, giving fire services little time to prepare.
RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said ‘dozens’ of homes in the country town were destroyed in the blaze.
It is too early for authorities to give an exact count of homes and businesses which have been lost, but locals described the aftermath as ‘apocalyptic.’
Mr Morrison has been criticised for the government’s handling of the crisis, with many claiming they have not done enough to help.
But he previously spoke out defending its actions, saying; ‘What we won’t allow to happen is for governments to be tripping over each other in order to somehow outbid each other in response’.
‘What we are saying is we cannot control the natural disaster but what we can do is control our response.’
Australia is teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis as remote communities remain cut off from medical help, water sources are compromised and food and fuel supplies run low.
HMAS Choules, which delivered emergency supplies to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, left Sydney on Wednesday and docked off the coast of fire-stricken Mallacoota mid-morning on Thursday.
The vessel can carry 700 passengers and will ferry evacuees to safety beginning on Friday morning, but there are up 4,000 people who remain stranded in the seaside town after it was devastated by bushfires.
The ship has also brought much-needed relief for those who are choosing to stay.
The townspeople told Mr Morrison it felt as though he didn’t care about the town
Business owner Sally Anne Wilson (left) stands in front of her destroyed shop with her partner Christopher Lee in Cobargo, NSW, Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Hundreds of fires are still burning out of control across the country, destroying millions of hectares, killing 18 and leaving 1,200 homes destroyed, with catastrophic 46C weather forecast for Saturday (pictured)
A kangaroo rushes past a burning house in Conjola (pictured) on New Year’s Eve, as officials prepare for a ‘horrible day’ on Saturday, with blistering temperatures and high winds likely to make conditions far worse