He’s no “suppository of wisdom”, but Tony Abbott’s latest gaffe would be comical if it so… wasn’t.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott was met with outrage in question time today when he described rising unemployment in the defence industry as a “holocaust of jobs”.
Read more: This is the horrific effect of keeping children in detention.
It hasn’t been a great week for the Prime Minister — despite surviving Monday’s spill motion — and the highest unemployment figures in 12 years surely did nothing to ease pressure on an embattled government.
Mr Abbott was addressing a question from the opposition about Unemployment has risen to a whopping 7.3 per cent in the South Australia where defence industry jobs have traditionally been strong.
“Under members opposite, defence jobs in this country declined by 10 per cent,” Mr Abbott told parliament.
“There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries.”
The seemingly terminally blunder-prone Prime Minister withdrew the comment and corrected himself, replacing the word “holocaust” with “decimation”.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry told Mamamia that they accepted the Prime Minister’s correction.
But if this is what the first week of “good government” looks under an Abbott led Coalition, you would be forgiven for wondering what bad government looks like.
Some of the Twitter reaction to the PM’s gaffe:
Top Comments
Can't stand the odious policies of the man - but I'm really getting tired of this incessant critique of everybody's every word. If anything, it was an outrageous exaggeration to claim that a 10 per cent job cut in defence jobs was 'a' holocaust (not to be confused with 'the' holocaust). Maybe a 70 or 80 per cent cut but not 10 per cent.
Marniequin2 posting as Guest
There is very little anyone can say about Tony Abbot to convince me that he is anything other than a sociopath. (Google 'sociopath' and get a list of characteristics)
HOWEVER, others who used the word, 'Holocaust', were NEVER attacked as he has been:-
Prime Minister Paul KEATING said the
Rudd government deserved to be re-elected on its reaction to the global
recession alone, saving Australia from an ”economic HOLOCAUST” that had massively crunched the US and UK.
Australian Greens leader Bob BROWN, called on Labor
to end the policy of clearfell logging and burning in Tasmania, saying,
“It is an environmental HOLOCAUST, no different to the
Sumatran clearfelling and burning which so appalled (climate change
economist) Sir Nicholas Stern a fortnight ago,”
John HOWARD said that " the strength the Australian economy has shown
in the face of the Asian economic HOLOCAUST has been absolutely remarkable.
Speaking of clean technology companies, Solar Greens Senator Scott LUDLAM said,
"Utility-scale power stations that can run 24/7, after dark have the ability to offset
the kind of HOLOCAUSTthat we are driving our economy, our society and our environment towards.
My conclusion:-
We are ourselves as unethical and despicable as Abbott himself is
if we support mindless, biassed criticism of him or any other politician.