A laughing stock: World reacts to Bunnings sausage scandal

Bunnings has copped criticism, praise and now even mockery since confirming yesterday that it would be changing the way it serves its famous sausage sizzle, due to safety concerns.

American newspaper The New York Times has poked fun at the crisis, pointing out the over-the-top reactions from Australians and how Aussies look to the rest of the world.

“Bunnings, a chain of hardware stores, upended tradition and suggested people put onions on the bottom and not the top of their sausages. Australians were not impressed,” the publication wrote.

“Australians, who take pride in their sausage sizzles, immediately responded with outrage. For many, the guidance was nothing short of an attack on their personal freedom. Yet again.”

 The New York Times added: “The discussion got so fevered that Prime Minister Scott Morrison found himself fielding a reporter’s question on Wednesday about whether Bunnings’s guidance was “un-Australian”. He delicately weighed into the fray.”

Talkback radio hosts, news readers, and even politicians have weighed in on the controversial policy that onions must now be placed below the sausage.

“Whether the onions are on top or underneath, I’ll always be buying sausages on bread,” Morrison said, according to SBS.

Read more: The iconic Bunnings sausage is undergoing a change for safety reasons

As reported by 3AW on Wednesday, those serving sausages must now place onions underneath the sausage, not on top as most people usually do.

Bunnings chief operating officer Debbie Poole said in a statement that the tweak would ensure the onion doesn’t fall out and create “a slipping hazard”, and was confident it wouldn’t change how good they taste.

“Safety is always our number one priority and we recently introduced a suggestion that onion be placed underneath sausages to help prevent the onion from falling out and creating a slipping hazard,” she said.

But not everyone is happy with it. On social media, the change has prompted mostly confusion, with one writing: “What is happening to this great country. Leave the Bunnings sausage sizzle alone!”

Another added: “What an outrage! Onion first? What’s next, cheese before the patty on a burger.”

Has health and safety ended mortality? Pretty sure we are all going to die at some point. Bunnings sizzlers now need to make a sausage upside down to prevent onion slipping hazards (if some drops on the ground). Come on earth. We are better than this.

— Billbot (@billbot997) November 13, 2018

And the man believed to have sparked the changes to Bunnings sausage sizzle has now come forward and broken his silence.

Queensland farmer Trevor said the warning was no laughing matter, having suffered serious injuries in that very situation. The 65-year-old from Mary Valley, north of Brisbane, told ABC Radio Sunshine Coast on Thursday he slipped on onions in a Bunnings store three years ago.

“It is serious stuff, this onion thing,” he told ABC. “I walked into store and it happened so fast, I had leather boots on … I went down on my back.”

Trevor was compensated by the hardware giant after his fall, which he said occurred just after he walked into the Gympie outlet to buy a whipper snipper in 2015.

“Every time I go into Bunnings now I look on the floor — I look for onions.”

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think we overreacted?