Dumped by the left, but firey Paul Parker is all right

Nelligen firefighter Paul Parker does not care if the Twitterati left have abandoned him over his support for Pauline Hanson.

‘It’s their political storm. It’s not mine’: Paul Parker with dog Rose on his property at Nelligen on the NSW south coast. Picture: Sean Davey

Nelligen firefighter Paul Parker does not care if the Twitterati left has abandoned him over his support­ for Pauline Hanson, saying­ he has backed both Bob Hawke and John Howard in the past.

Mr Parker made world headlines last month when his fire truck came across a Seven News crew and used the opportunity to tell Scott Morrison to “get f..ked”.

The clip went viral and he soon came to represent the anger and disappointment many Australians felt towards the Prime Minister over his handling of the fires.

There is currently a $2500 tab — paid by people across the world — on the bar at the Steampacket Hotel in Nelligen to ensure Mr Parker never has to buy his own drinks again. But when a clip of him emerged saying that the only politician he trusted was the right-wing Senator Hanson, left-wingers on Twitter quickly dropped Mr Parker as their new political hero.

Mr Parker said it was all news to him. He is not on Twitter, rarely reads newspapers and does not consider himself political at all.

“To be quite honest, that’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he told The Australian. “No one cares and I didn’t know that out there in the bullshit world I’m a Pauline Hanso­n supporter. I’m also a Bob Hawke supporter and a Johnny Howard supporter.

“I’m not a political person … it’s their political storm. It’s not mine.”

Mr Parker has been in contact with Senator Hanson’s office and is willing to consider campaigning for her. “She’s like me, she tells it like it is,” he said. “Whether what she says is 100 per cent accurate or the right way to go … to me, she’s a fair-dinkum Aussie.”

Mr Parker spent all summer defendin­g his own property and his neighbours’, with little break for six weeks. He lost several water tanks and was exhausted when he made his famous outburst against Mr Morrison.

The ex-Rural Fire Service voluntee­r is now focused on gettin­g government support for his struggling NSW south coast village and boosting the number of hazard reduction burns before the next summer. But he said he was fine, it was the people of Nelligen — who nearly lost everything — who needed support.

“There is promised money out there, but where is it? People have applied for grants and been knocked back,” he said.

“What I’m asking the government and asking ScoMo is to put up or shut up.

“So far he’s shutting up.”

Mr Parker believes climate change is a factor in the fires, which he said were the worst he had seen in nearly 20 years fighting fires on and off. But he said the first thing governments needed to do was increase and improve ­hazard reduction burns.

“If hazard reduction burning had been done, it wouldn’t have impacted Batemans Bay, it wouldn’t have impacted Mogo,” he said. “The fuel loads were ankle-deep. They were knee-deep, actually. You need to get rid of the fuel loads.”

He was particularly upset at Mr Morrison’s comments, on returning from a controversial holiday in Hawaii, that volunteers wanted to go out and fight fires.

Mr Morrison has said repeatedly since that he was misquoted, and meant that they were passionate about protecting their communit­ies.

But most concerning is the voluntee­r firefighter’s claims that he was sacked by his local RFS station­ after the outburst against Mr Morrison.

The RFS denies it and has said Mr Parker was stood down because of exhaustion.

But Mr Parker said he was no less or more exhausted than every other firefighter.

He still said on Wednesday that he was sacked and had not heard from the RFS directly. “I just said (about Mr Morrison) what everyone was thinking,” he said.