Scott Morrison has dismissed Greta Thunberg’s call for Australia to take more action on climate change, declaring he was “not here to impress people overseas”.
The Prime Minister said he would keep his focus on voters rather than the 16-year-old climate activist, who lashed the Morrison government for failing to take sufficient action on emissions in the wake of the bushfire crisis.
“Australia and the Australian government will set our policies based on Australia’s national interests, on what Australia needs to do. That’s where I keep my focus,” Mr Morrison said.
“It’s not for me to make commentaries on what those outside of Australia think that Australia should do. We’ll do in Australia what we think is right for Australia. And that has always been my guiding principle.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Picture: AFP
“I’m not here to try to impress people overseas. I’m here to do the right job for Australians and put them first.”
Yesterday, Ms Thunberg tweeted a news report of the NSW bushfires and declared: “Not even catastrophes like these seem to bring any political action. How is this possible?”
Barnaby Joyce also lashed out at Ms Thunberg, declaring he did not want to hear from “a screeching Scandinavian teenager” about how to deal with the fires in NSW.
The former deputy prime minister said the teenage activist should “stick to screaming at your school mates and your teachers” in her homeland rather than lecture Australians.
“I don’t want to hear from screeching Scandinavians telling me how to deal with bushfires in northern NSW; a screeching Scandinavian teenager is proselytising to northern NSW,” Mr Joyce told The Australian.
“She has probably never even set foot here. It is like me giving the iceberg report to the fields of Norway. I mean it is ridiculous.
“If she thinks that looking disturbed and screaming down the barrel is the way she is going to fix the climate well good luck to you. But if you just stay wherever the hell you are from that would make me feel a lot better.”
Mr Joyce said climate change and drought were caused by a range of factors.
“Of course the climate is changing. But my argument is, if you can get 76 out of 151 people in Canberra to vote and it will actually change back, well let’s go back to parliament now because I want it to rain,” Mr Joyce said.
“This drought is caused by a range of factors. It is caused by the Indian Ocean Dipole, it is caused by El Nino, it is caused by the fluctuation of solar activity, it is caused by carbon dioxide emissions. It is caused by a whole range of things.
“One of them we have a tiny bit of affect and the rest we have no effect whatsoever.”
Earlier, Mr Morrison flagged a push to overhaul the management of fuel loads in national parks as well as the rules around land and native vegetation clearing as he warned the fires would rage on after the Christmas period.
In a media blitz this morning, the Prime Minister stood firm against ramping up Australia’s climate change commitments after meeting with NSW fire crews and opening the door for compensation for volunteers fighting the nearly 200 blazes across the nation.
Speaking on 2GB, Mr Morrison said that action was “absolutely” needed to better address “how fuel loads are managed in national parks” and said a greater focus should be placed on the “rules that sit around clearing trees” close to properties.
He warned that some people had been “quite difficult” in preventing progress in these areas but agreed it was necessary to change the existing rules.
