Jeremy Clarkson sparks outrage over bushfire article
Jeremy Clarkson has been slammed over a controversial article in which he claimed “Australia is God’s laboratory and people were not actually meant to live there”.
Clarkson’s column, published in UK newspaper The Sun, said that God “decided to set fire” to Australia because the country “isn’t meant for human habitation”.
The 59-year-old described Australia as a continent “far, far away” created by God to house “his experiments that had gone wrong”, such as the saltwater crocodile.
“For millions of years, this big, sandy cupboard under the stairs went unnoticed. But then along came Captain Cook and now the world knows all about Oz and its stupid, dangerous creatures,” the former Top Gear host wrote.
“It’s been argued the fires raging across the country were caused by global warming or out-of-control barbies. But when you look at the footage, you know something biblical is going on. Those things are huge.”
At the end of the article, Clarkson encouraged Australians to ‘return’ to the UK. “So if you’re reading this down there, please come home [to the UK]. You’ll like it. It never stops raining. And we are better at sport.”
The opinion piece comes as Australia faces a bushfire crisis, with over 1,300 properties destroyed and more than 450 million animals estimated to have been killed since the start of the fire season.
Readers have criticised Clarkson’s article as “tone deaf” and insensitive to the plights of the affected communities.
What an unscrupulous and grubby attempt at relevancy by an utterly out of touch tosser. Appalling by Jeremy Clarkson and @TheSun
Australia is God’s laboratory and people were not actually meant to live there – The Sun https://t.co/czviUAJt5J— Shane Anderson (@Globalgallop) January 4, 2020