Canberra – Hollywood celebrities, singers and sports stars have led efforts to raise funds for firefighters and bushfire victims in Australia, as the conservative government’s response comes under mounting criticism.
World number one tennis player Ashleigh Barty was the latest sports star to join fundraising efforts, pledging to donate all of her Brisbane International prize money. The event, which starts Monday, has a top prize of 250,000 US dollars.
Celeste Barber, an Australian comedian, has already raised a whopping 16 million US dollars to help the firefighters battle the deadly bushfires in just two days.
“That’s almost twice as much money as [Prime Minister Scott Morrison] allocated for the entire year (and that was after cutting funding to them),” Australian author Clementine Ford said on her Twitter.
