Image via Channel 7 //

Who wouldn’t want to shout Paul Parker a beer?

It was the outburst that summed up the frustration of millions of Australians and made headlines around the world during the bushfire crisis: “Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get f—ed from Nelligen. We really enjoy doing this shit, f—head,” said RFS volunteer Paul Parker to a Channel 7 news crew in early January this year.

The comments quickly went viral with many Aussies championing Parker as a hero, though his words had an impact on his life in other ways. Speaking on The Project last night the Nelligen local said “Another captain from another brigade within Batemans Bay came out and I asked him the question, I said: ‘What’s going on?’ He said: ‘You’re finished because of your allegations and foul language against the PM of the country while representing the RFS’.” “Didn’t know you could get sacked from a volunteer organisation but apparently you can.”

At Parker’s local pub, however, the response has been very different, with masses of people coming in to put money behind the bar for him. “Pretty much every day someone comes in and puts their money down, telling us to buy a few beers for that bloke who got stuck into the Prime Minister,” the licensee of Nelligen’s Steampacket Hotel, Joel Alvey told the Sydney Morning Herald.

A grateful Parker, who had been off work when fighting the fires has said the whopping tab has been used to shout beers for his mates. Sounds like the perfect way to reward this legend right?

Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked from Nelligen. pic.twitter.com/LPjtPxtXMU

— David Michie (@dmichie66) January 4, 2020