Emerging Victorian disaster must keep PM at home

How could PM Scott Morrison even contemplate attending the Glasgow climate change summit when he may be needed to lead the response to a developing Covid crisis in Victoria.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media at a press conference in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

It is blindingly obvious that it would be utterly pointless for the prime minister to go to the Glasgow carbon dioxide-emitting bloviation event – the impressively 26th of the same pointless ilk.

But there’s now an added and far more urgent reason why it could be highly irresponsible for him to leave the country this month – what could be an emerging Covid crisis in Victoria thanks to the ineptitude of the Andrews state Labor government.

The only point of his physical presence in Glasgow would have been to add to global pressure on China – easily the world’s largest CO2 emitter, now responsible for nearly one-third of the globe’s entire emissions – to swing 180 degrees and commit to even just some cuts.

What’s the point of – in truth, actually, utterly fatuous – commitments to net zero by 2050, when the world’s biggest emitter is fully committed to keep increasing its emissions through at least 2030?

And indeed, has the world’s blessing to do so. Although that ‘blessing’ is more like the answer to the question: where does the elephant sleep? Anywhere it wants to.

China says it ‘might’ stop increasing emissions by 2030 and it will “aim” for net zero by 2060.

Oh, right, sure: you can take that to the same bank as China’s promises over Hong Kong.

Just quietly, Scott ‘Nukes” Morrison was about the last world leader on the planet able to ‘persuade’ China’s Chairman Xi about anything just now.

But heck, nobody at all is going to Glasgow to try to persuade China to cut its emissions anyway.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media at a Canberra press conference. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Further, all he would achieve would be to set himself up for a lot of fatuous hypocritical lecturing, even if he did intend to commit to 2050 net zero. The demand now is for bigger – and, given China – pointless cuts by 2030.

I guess that makes some sort of weird sense – let’s demand bigger cuts from the schmucks.

Besides all, it would be great to see Morrison playing with the minds of everyone there by leaving Australia to be “represented” by his two twittering predecessor twerps Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd.

Rudd in particular would be able to reprise his Great Triumph from the 2009 Coppenfloppen bloviation.

At least the organisers have been a little less stupid, in bringing this Global Warming conference forward from the awkward December reality of Coppenfloppen’s very icy winter to Glasgow’s late autumn.

But who knows, given the recent energy shortages across Europe, the delegates might still get lucky. They might still get to experience the future they want of a world without electricity derived from fossil fuels and especially, in the UK, gas.

Or indeed they could get really lucky and experience an early winter without any electricity or heating at all.

But all that aside, how could Morrison even contemplate leaving, when he may be needed to lead the response to what could be a developing Covid crisis in Victoria.

Eight weeks into its brutal Andrews curated lockdown – and almost to the day, Melbourne hit the record of world’s longest locked down city – the numbers Tuesday were seriously disturbing.

It wasn’t just they showed the damming failure of the Andrews “go early go hard” approach, and especially its excessive brutality, with the 1763 cases rocketing well above the worst day in NSW a month ago of 1573.

The really disturbing point was the rate of cases relative to the number of tests.

Nearly 3 per cent of the Victorian tests came up positive. That 1573 in NSW was in contrast barely 1 per cent of the test numbers.

Where will it go? Who knows? But how could the PM possibly contemplate leaving the country.

The media that jumped on him for going to Hawaii would surely crucify him a second time round.