Morrison toured the headquarters of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service - whose exhausted volunteers have been struggling to contain deadly, out-of-control-blazes for months on end - where he admitted he had erred in travelling overseas.

Morrison had departed for a family holiday amid record bushfires that have destroyed an area the size of Belgium and cloaked major cities from Brisbane to Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne in choking toxic fumes. "I get it that people would have been upset to know that I was holidaying with my family while their families were under great stress," he said.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019