Bushfires: Scott Morrison deserves a pass over Hawaii holiday furore

Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media on Sunday. Picture: AAP

Prime ministers work phenomenal hours and they do get run down. Anyone working 70 hours a week is entitled to a break.

I have watched up close how Prime Minsters work, and trying to find a “good” time to get away is very difficult indeed.

This Christmas after seven long years of a prolonged drought, huge chunks of Australia are tinder boxes ready to erupt into flame. Lives have been lost already and it would be a miracle if there were no more casualties. Australia’s annual summer struggle is on again in earnest.

I have just listened to Scott Morrison proclaiming that we should be “enormously proud” of the way Australians have reacted to this crisis. The incredible courage and the amount of generosity shown by the firefighters is truly extraordinary.

Just how they manage to defend other people’s homes while not knowing if their own are still standing is beyond me.

To think of some people who have been named as Australians of the year and what they have done to be so recognised — well, I see hundreds of heroes who will never be publicly recognised.

It doesn’t matter if they do this job full time or are just part-time warriors. These are the people we need to acknowledge and to ­celebrate.

The fires have interrupted the holiday plans of thousands of ­Australian families and none more so than the Morrisons’.

This Prime Minister is a truly devoted family man and no doubt would have planned his holiday a few months ago.

When you become prime ­minister, you make tremendous personal sacrifices which doesn’t worry me because you signed up for it. The families, however, never signed up to losing their mum or dad for long, regular periods of time.

Spare a thought for those poor members who represent Western Australia or Northern Territory seats in house of the federal parliament. They are forced to spend a hell of a lot of time in planes, and there is an outcry every time a government jet is used to ferry them to work or home.

Thank you to all my readers this year and from myself, Amanda and D’Arcy, we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, especially to all those brave firefighters.