Peter Dutton, Australia’s immigration minister, has apologised for making a lame joke about Pacific Island nations being threatened by climate change.
Mr. Dutton was hanging out with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and liberal sidekick Scott Morrison before a meeting about Syria’s refugees.
During a bit of parliament and chill Mr. Dutton struck up conversation about indigenous folks punctuality and then went on to basically say “oh well islands like Papua New Guinea will be wiped out soon anyways.”
A boom microphone recorded the whole thing.
It’s a fucking fascinating peek into the world of old school tricky dicky politicians. In less than sixty seconds they’re able to sound casually racist and callously jest about a country being wiped out. Do they have guinness records for this shit?
I love how Scott Morrison notices there’s a boom microphone above them at the very end. It’s like “bugger, we’ve been busted for being arrogant and ignorant again haven’t we?”
Mr Dutton has now said “I made a mistake and I apologise to anyone who has taken offence to it. It was a light-hearted discussion with the PM and I didn’t mean any offence to anyone.” In other words, “I was trying to kiss arse and get social validation from the boss, what of it?”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said the twitter storm over this shows Australia at its worst. Yeah nah, it doesn’t.
One major reason this is a crap joke is because the Prime Minister has just come back from a meeting where he refused Pacific Island nations’ pleas to commit to tougher emissions reductions. This joke is like a kick in the guts when you’re already down.
You gotta enjoy how close and noticeable that boom microphone is.
I also enjoy this version of the video with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme added in for good measure.
You have to wonder about these fellas some days. Conservative politicians appear to be climate change deniers yet behind the scenes with jokes like these they give it some level of recognition.
