Scott Morrison responds to outrage over photo of him outside an English countryside pub for G7

Scott Morrison has hit back at accusations of hypocrisy from angry Australians after an image of him standing outside an English pub sparked outrage.  

The Jamaica Inn hotel in Cornwall posted a social media image of the Australian Prime Minister visiting their drinking hole for a weekend lunch, during the three-day G7 summit at Carbis Bay, a one-hour drive away.

‘Pleasure to have the Australian Prime Minister and his 20-plus personal team for lunch this weekend,’ it said on Facebook.

‘You never know what you might find at Jamaica Inn!’

The Launceston village hotel’s Facebook page was inundated with messages protesting against Australia’s ban on citizens travelling overseas or foreigners visiting Australia to see family and friends. 

Mr Morrison on Monday morning said the pub was one of several places in the UK he visited during his trip and called the photo opportunity ‘pretty innocent’.

He also hit out at claims his staff planned a side trip for him in the UK so he could explore his convict heritage.

 An image of Scott Morrison standing outside an English pub has sparked angry accusations of hypocrisy as Australians face yet another year of overseas travel bans

The Jamaica Inn hotel, in Cornwall, posted a social media image of the Australian Prime Minister visiting their drinking hole for a weekend lunch, during the three-day G7 summit at Carbis Bay, a one-hour drive away

Is it hypocritical for Scott Morrison to fly to the UK as Australians are banned from travelling overseas?

‘I think it was pretty innocent and I think that’s massively overstating it,’ he told 2GB host Ben Fordham from self-isolation following his return to Australia. 

‘After the G7 on the way back to the airport we stopped at a place that just happened to be where my fifth great grandfather was from.’

Mr Morrison was driven to the Cornwall village of St Keverne under police escort on the last day of the conference, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He was then given a personal tour of its graveyard by a historical society commissioned to research his family history.

Mr Morrison’s 17,000km visit to England last Tuesday, Australian time, yielded a free-trade deal with the UK, following the June 11 to 13 summit.

The G7 also condemned China’s human rights abuses and called for a fresh inquiry into the origins of Covid, demonstrating the US, UK and the Europe Union could be united in the face of a more aggressive Communist superpower.

Mr Morrison was accompanied by personal advisers, public servants from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, along with Australian High Commission staff, based in London, during his pub visit on Sunday, Australian time. 

His office also confirmed an official photographer and a press secretary were part of the entourage to the UK.

Mr Morrison’s entourage of 20 staff was significantly smaller than US President Joe Biden’s 1,100 personnel. 

‘The Prime Minister is travelling with seven personal staff including his senior national security and international policy adviser, his senior defence adviser, a senior media adviser and photographer to manage travelling media and local media engagements, his executive officer and his director of programme and advancer,’ a spokeswoman for the PM told Daily Mail Australia.  

The Jamaica Inn hotel, in the Cornwall county village of Launceston, posted a social media image of the Australian Prime Minister visiting their drinking hole following the three-day G7 summit at Carbis Bay, a one-hour drive away

The Launceston village hotel’s Facebook page has been inundated with messages protesting against Australia’s ban on citizens travelling overseas or foreigners visiting Australia to see family and friends

With the Australian government expecting to keep the travel ban in place until at least mid-2022, Melbourne engineer Kim Bernadette suggested Mr Morrison could have joined the G7 by Zoom like his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, whose country has recently battled a deadly Covid second wave.

‘He could have participated as a guest via zoom, as the Indian PM did,’ she tweeted.

‘Double standards when Australians can’t leave the country.

‘It’s tone deaf for Scott Morrison to be in the UK with an entourage of 20.

‘Australia isn’t a member of the G7.’

Mr Morrison’s spokeswoman said meeting world leaders in person was better than over Zoom.

‘The G7 and meetings in Singapore, the UK and France are a unique opportunity for the Prime Minister to ensure Australia is at the table with the world’s largest democracies for vitally important security, health and economic talks,’ she said.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited Australia, India and South Korea to the June 11 to 13 G7 summit, even though they are not permanent members of the Group of Seven nations. Mr Johnson is pictured left with Mr Morrison centre and US President Joe Biden right

With the PM and not ordinary people allowed to travel to and from Australia, an English grandmother lamented at how she was yet to meet her two-month old granddaughter in Victoria.

‘We last hugged our daughter who lives outside Melbourne in August 2019,’ she said.

‘We now have a grand daughter born April this year. When will we get to meet her? 

‘How old will she be?’

A Facebook group, UK Mums in Australia, protested about the ban on permanent residents leaving Australia for social visits unrelated to work.

‘I cannot begin to tell you how rage-inducing this happy snap is for our community and for everyone stuck here in Australia with family in the UK,’ it said.

‘The double standard of it all is astounding. Parents according to Scott Morrison (ScoMo) are not considered immediate family in Australia. 

With the Australian government expecting to keep the travel ban in place until at least mid-2022, Melbourne engineer Kim Bernadette suggested Mr Morrison could have joined in by Zoom like his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, whose country has recently battled a deadly Covid second wave

‘We are separated from partners, children, parents and grandparents with no road map from the government when we can see them again.’ 

The social media pile-on, featuring an image of that English pub, spilled over into Mr Morrison’s Facebook page.

On woman defended the Prime Minister, among a sea of hostile comments.

‘All the left wing whingers are here,’ she said.

In limited circumstances, Australia’s Department of Home Affairs is allowing overseas travel for work-related purposes or for compassionate reasons like a funeral on the proviso Australians quarantine for 14 days when they arrive home, regardless if they have been vaccinated or not for Covid-19.

Social visits overseas, however, have been banned since the start of the Covid pandemic in March 2020. 

Scott Morrison’s visit to England yielding a free-trade deal with the UK. He is pictured with his UK counterpart Boris Johnson outside 10 Downing Street in London

An English grandmother lamented at how she was yet to meet her two-month old granddaughter in Australia

Mr Morrison on Sunday, Australian time, defended the overseas travel ban after being asked at a press conference about his English country pub visit.

‘What they can do is that they can go to sporting games,’ he said during a media conference at the St Illogan Church in the UK.

‘They can go to work. They can live in an economy that is bigger today than before. 

‘That hasn’t seen the terrible number of deaths that we’ve seen in other parts of the world.’

Asked when Australians would be able to travel overseas again, Mr Morrison said: ‘When the medical advice suggests that we should.’

Unlike returned Australian travellers or his entourage to the UK, Mr Morrison won’t have to quarantine for 14 days at a cramped hotel.

In December, he confined himself to The Lodge in Canberra after a visit to Japan to meet his new counterpart Yoshihide Suga and Mr Morrison will do that again when he returns to Australia from the UK.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited Australia, India and South Korea to the June 11 to 13 G7 summit, even though they are not permanent members of the Group of Seven nations

Mr Johnson used Mr Morrison’s UK visit to sign a UK-Australia free-trade deal, the first such bilateral arrangement since Brexit was finalised in January 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic was declared. The deal will give Australian farmers better access to the UK market to sell their agricultural exports, with China slapping punitive tariffs and trade sanctions on Australian barley and lamb

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited Australia, India and South Korea to the June 11 to 13 G7 summit, even though they are not permanent members of the Group of Seven nations.

Mr Johnson used Mr Morrison’s UK visit to sign a UK-Australia free-trade deal, the first such bilateral arrangement since Brexit was finalised in January 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic was declared.

The deal, inked at 10 Downing Street in London, will give Australian farmers better access to the UK market to sell their agricultural exports, with China slapping punitive tariffs and trade sanctions on Australian barley and lamb. 

The G7 also condemned China, Australia’s biggest trading partner, for its treatment of Muslim Uighurs and the curtailing of Hong Kong’s liberal freedoms.

A Facebook group, UK Mums in Australia, protested about the ban on permanent residents leaving Australia for social visits unrelated to work

Launceston in the UK’s Cornwall county is a world away from Australia. During the 2019 election Mr Morrison visited another Launceston, in northern Tasmania. His meet and greet with voters in the Sporties Hotel helped the Liberal Party win the crucial marginal seat of Bass from Labor

It also called for a new World Health Organisation investigation into the origins of Covid, after President Biden ordered a new intelligence inquiry into whether the virus had escaped from a laboratory at Wuhan.

Local issues rather than international factors are more likely to decide who wins the next Australian election, due to be held by May 2022. 

Launceston in the UK’s Cornwall county is a world away from Australia. 

During the 2019 election Mr Morrison visited another Launceston, in northern Tasmania.

His meet and greet with voters in the Sporties Hotel helped the Liberal Party win the crucial marginal seat of Bass from Labor, despite numerous opinion polls having former Opposition Leader Bill Shorten as the favourite to win the election.

Just seven months after winning the May 2019 election, Mr Morrison’s popularity fell after he was photographed at Hawaii just before Christmas as bushfires raged across New South Wales and Queensland

While the travel ban is unpopular with social media activists, the pub test may well decide if the Coalition wins a fourth, consecutive term next year, which would be the first since 2004 when John Howard was PM.

Just seven months after winning the May 2019 election, Mr Morrison’s popularity fell after he was photographed at Hawaii just before Christmas as bushfires raged across New South Wales and Queensland.

A month later, the first case of Covid came to Australia.  

Nonetheless, a travel bubble with New Zealand that began in April has seen visitor arrivals to Australia almost triple in just one month, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed. In April, 22,610 people flew into Australia for a short stay, up from 8,320 in March. Of those short-term visitors, 16,320 came from New Zealand, a big increase from 2,060 the previous month

Zali Steggall, the independent member for Warringah on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, and Liberal MP Dave Sharma have voiced concerns about the overseas travel ban.  

Nonetheless, a travel bubble with New Zealand that began in late April has seen visitor arrivals to Australia almost triple in just one month, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Tuesday showed.

In April, 22,610 people flew into Australia for a short stay, up from 8,320 in March.

Of those short-term visitors, 16,320 came from New Zealand, a big increase from 2,060 the previous month.