It’s been a rough day for old Barnaby Joyce, what with Johnny Depp having gone on Jimmy Kimmel and called him “inbred with a tomato”, and, now, having (possibly) mistakenly said the craziest possible thing about asylum seekers and THEN doubling down on it a bunch of times.
During a regional leaders debate in Golbourn, NSW, Joyce finished a diatribe about the Greens and Labor ending live export of cattle to Indonesia by pointing out that the banning coincided with a rise in asylum seeker boats heading to Australia.
“What the fuck could that mean?” you might possibly ask. Moderator Chris Uhlmann had a similar question, asking Joyce to clarify if he believed those two things to be connected.
When Joyce said he did, Uhlmann asked if he realised he was implying that the Indonesian Government unleashed the boats in response to the banning. Joyce’s reply:
“I think it’s absolutely the case that we created extreme bad will with Indonesia when we closed down the live animal export industry.”
It’s hard to guess at what was going on inside his round and unbelievably red head, but maybe he lost a bet or something and was forced to try make a somehow more embarrassing statement about asylum seekers than Peter Dutton did.
Both Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon and the Greens’ Richard Di Natale asked him if he was seriously saying Indonesia was sending the boats and both times Joyce refused to take back what he said, vaguely talking about the banning creating “bad feelings” in Indonesia.
What a weird fucking time. Have a watch, there’s a lot of laughter from the crowd, because duh, this is insane:
Dep PM @Barnaby_Joyce has linked 2011 decision to suspend live exports with more asylum seekers @abcnews #ausvoteshttps://t.co/fmy3IG2oR0
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) May 25, 2016
Source: ABC.
Photo: Getty Images / Stefan Postles.
