Nationals MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has produced a special Christmas video, in which he rails against government action on climate change from the back of a feed truck and gives props to a “higher authority”.
[jwplayer 7z0GpL1e]
In true and inscrutable Joyce fashion, the Member for New England said he was spending his drought-stricken Christmas Eve feeding cattle. With a raised voice and a strand of hay stubbornly attached to his damp forehead, Joyce effectively said he opposes further action from his political ilk.
“You don’t need to convince me that the climate’s not changing. It is changing,” Joyce said.
“My problem has always been whether you believe a new tax is gonna change it back. Look, I just don’t want the government any more in my life. I’m sick of the government being in my life.”
That’s a classic line from Joyce, who has long blamed renewable energy investment as a cause of rising power prices.
After washing his hands of the issue, and seeming to glide over the fact he has tried very, very hard to keep his own life in politics, Joyce turned to the only entity he believes can solve things: God.
“The other thing is, I think we’ve got to acknowledge there is a higher authority that’s beyond our comprehension, right up there in the sky. Unless we understand that’s got to be respected, we’re just fools, and we’re going to get nailed,” Joyce said.
Is “nailing” more of an Easter thing than Christmas? Look, yes, but whatever.
Merry Christmas pic.twitter.com/QGYPv51pTN
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) December 24, 2019
Despite the patent weirdness of the whole thing, Joyce’s video seems like the apotheosis of the whole ‘thoughts and prayers’ thing promoted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and a clear suggestion that Australia’s political class believes the nation should do fuck-all to avoid environmental catastrophe.
As for the tax thing: If only Jesus Christ had said something about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Oh well!
