The prime minister has compared his decision to go on a family holiday to Hawaii during a bushfire emergency to parents opting to take an 'extra plumbing contract' instead of picking up their kids on Friday afternoon.
"We all seek to balance our work life responsibilities and we all try and get that right and we can all make better decisions on occasion," he said.
"Whether it's on a Friday afternoon and you are deciding to take that extra plumbing contract and you said you were going to pick up the kids or something at my level. These are the things you juggle as parents." Mr Morrison added that the fires had been raging since September and listed the affected places that he and his wife, Jenny, had visited before their holiday.
The decision to return came after hundreds of protesters last week gathered outside Mr Morrison's prime ministerial residence in Kirribilli, calling for the leader to return from his break and act on climate change as a second state of emergency was declared in New South Wales due to the bushfires.
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