
Prime Minister Scott Morrison thought he'd finally earned himself a restful week off with his family.
If you'll cast your mind back to December 2019, you'll remember that our leader whisked his family off for a sneaky little break in Hawaii while Australia was in the midst of one of its worst bushfire seasons on record.
It wasn't received very well... as you might recall.
Watch: Michael McCormack is filling in for Morrison, and he's already stirring up controversy. Post continues after video.
But in 2021, Morrison wasn't going to repeat the same mistake. On Monday he announced a week-long holiday from the top job in writing.
"I will be on official leave this week until Monday January 18. During my short absence, the Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack will be the Acting Prime Minister and undertake my duties during this period," he wrote in an official statement.
"There, done and done," we imagine the prime minister mumbling to himself as he packed up the family car ready to put the year that was behind him with a good ol' relax.
But in just two days, the man he's put in charge is already making headlines - multiple headlines - for all the wrong reasons.
It started with the Capitol Hill comments.
On Monday morning, McCormack appeared on ABC's RN where he was asked about the riot that occurred on Capitol Hill the previous Thursday.
He called the violence "unfortunate", and "similar to those race riots that we saw around the country last year".
The comments attracted swift condemnation.
"It is appalling that our national leadership views the Australia BLM protests that were conducted in 2020 as "race riots" when they were peaceful protests to call out the ongoing injustice of Indigenous deaths in custody," said Professor Jacinta Elston, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Monash University.
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