As firefighters prepare to work through Christmas, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has continued to defend his decision to go on holidays in Hawaii amid last week's worsening bushfires, labelling criticism of the trip and of his office's secrecy around it as "point-scoring".
Appearing on Seven's Sunrise and Nine's Today on Monday, Mr Morrison said his decision to take the family trip was a case of juggling the demands of work and parental responsibilities.
He told Sunrise the overseas holiday was planned seven weeks ago and compared his decision to that of a plumber weighing up taking a Friday afternoon job.
"We all make decisions. You do as a parent, I do as a parent, we'll seek to balance our work life responsibilities and we all try to get that right," he said.
"Whether it’s on a Friday afternoon and you are deciding to take that extra plumbing contract and you said you would pick up the kids, or something at my level, these are things you juggle as parents."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian arrive at the Picton Bowling club that has been turned into a Evacuation Centre on Sunday.Credit:Edwina PIckles
The trip to Hawaii was the Prime Minister's second overseas holiday in six months, after the family visited Fiji for a week in June.
Mr Morrison denied that his office sought to keep the Hawaii trip under wraps, saying "I texted the leader of the Opposition about it myself", and that criticism of the apparent secrecy surrounding the holiday amounted to "point-scoring" by political opponents.
"I followed the same process I had on previous occasions and no journalist raised any issues with that over the last two occasions over the last year and a half," he said.
Mr Morrison will spend Monday visiting firefighters in Ilford and an evacuation centre in Mudgee, both west of the mega-fire in Wollemi National Park.
On Sunday, he apologised for any offence taken as a result of his Hawaii trip before visiting an evacuation centre and emergency control centre in the Wollondilly Shire in Sydney's south-west with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Members of the Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade embrace while remembering their fallen comrades on Sunday. Credit:Jenny Evans/Getty Images
Later, he visited the wives of the two local firefighters who were killed when their truck hit a fallen tree on Thursday night.
A number of villages in the Wollondilly area were severely impacted by the Green Wattle Creek bushfire on Saturday, including Balmoral, where Ms Berejiklian said "there's not much left".
Ms Berejiklian, who is visiting fire-affected Blue Mountains communities on Monday, told reporters she was grateful more lives hadn't been lost after witnessing how close the fire came to Blackheath, "in what we would regard as suburbia".
"We have lost eight people during this season in tragic circumstances and that toll could have been far worse. I am grateful every day we wake up and realise that people have survived a night, that we haven't had more deaths," she said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers visit Mount Victoria on Monday. Credit:James Brickwood
Firefighters fear as many as 100 buildings have been destroyed in the bushfires that tore through NSW under Saturday's catastrophic conditions. Meanwhile, losses from fires near Adelaide continue to climb with 86 homes now confirmed destroyed.
A number of NSW roads remain closed as work is undertaken to clear dangerous trees and fire-affected power poles. The RFS is urging people to check the status of roads they are planning to travel through via LiveTraffic.com.
Fatigued firefighters to work through Christmas
With 90 fires burning across the state on Monday, firefighters are taking advantage of more favourable conditions to strengthen containment lines before the weather deteriorates again on the weekend.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told Sunrise fireighters are doing significant backburning in the Blue Mountains and south-western Sydney, and would be hard at work through Christmas.
"A massive amount of work right across firegrounds the length and breadth of the state will continue throughout this Christmas-New Year period," Mr Fitzsimmons said.
He said firefighters were "absolutely tired" but doing a remarkable job.
"Yes they're fatigued – physically fatigued, emotionally fatigued – but they know their communities are under threat and they're going to do all they can," he said.
Although conditions are forecast to ease over the coming week, Mr Fitzsimmons painted a grim picture of the longer-term weather outlook for NSW.
"We've got to keep in mind that we're not expecting any rainfall to make any meaningful difference to these fires until January or February," he said on Sunday.
"That's still a way to go. We're still talking four to six weeks at best before we start to see a meaningful reprieve in the weather."
With AAP
Jenny Noyes is a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously a writer and editor at Daily Life.
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