“I have obviously returned from leave and I know that has caused some great anxiety in Australia and (my wife) Jenny and I acknowledge that,” Morrison said in a news conference on Sunday. “If you had your time over again and you had the benefit of hindsight then (you’d) have made different decisions.”
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Morrison was heavily criticized for taking a pre-Christmas trip to Hawaii as thousands of firefighters worked to contain the wildfires.
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“I’m sure Australians … understand that when you make a promise to your kids you try and keep it. But as prime minister you have other responsibilities,” he said at the news conference. “I accept the criticism.”
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More than 105 bush and grass fires continued to burn across New South Wales — a southeastern state of Australia — early Sunday, according to the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. About 59 of them were still not contained, the service said.
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A state of emergency was declared in the state for the second time in two months.
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The connection to climate change
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The bushfires have been burning for two months now, exacerbated by strong winds that stoke the flames and spread dangerous embers, and by rising temperatures– including a record-breaking heat wave that began earlier this week.
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The prime minister acknowledged there is a connection between weather events, fire events and global climate change.
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At the news conference Sunday, Morrison said there is “no argument” about the links between “broader issues of global climate change and weather events around the world.”
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“But I’m sure people equally would acknowledge that the direct connection to any single fire event, it’s not a credible suggestion to make that link,” he said.
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“We must take action on climate change, we are taking action on climate change,” he said Sunday.
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Sunday was expected to be cooler, the Bureau of Meteorology for New South Wales wrote, but many communities “away from the coast will still experience significant heat.”
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‘Some have lost everything’
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Since September, the death toll from the wildfires has jumped to nine, with nearly 800 homes destroyed in the country.
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“Some have lost everything, some have received news their properties have been saved, & others are still waiting to find out,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Twitter. “Their common message was deep gratitude for our amazing firefighters.”
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More than 2,500 firefighters have been working across the region to contain the fires.
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Volunteer firefighters Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, died Thursday near the town of Buxton, southwest of Sydney. It’s believed their vehicle hit a tree before rolling off the road, said the New South Wales Rural Fire Service in a statement on Friday. Three other firefighters were also injured.
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Keaton joined the RFS as a volunteer firefighter in 2006 and was deputy captain of the Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade in western Sydney. O’Dwyer joined the service in 2003 and was also a member of the Horsley Park brigade. Both men were fathers to young children, according to CNN affiliate Nine News.
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