Election season is wild enough for us regular folk, let alone for the people who stand to lose their jobs at the end of it. Ask Barnaby Joyce – deputy prime minister, proud nemesis of small dogs, and sworn enemy of anti-mining advocates in his electorate of New England.
.@Barnaby_Joyce responds to whether the Fed Govt has precedence to stop mining. @afsnsw says we need an end #QandA https://t.co/0KxqFaEGG8
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) June 6, 2016
Chirlian claims it went down like this: she saw him at the public bar, so she decided to go up and ask our Minister for Agriculture to attend an upcoming forum on the Shenhua coal mine in the region’s farmland.
He left for the men’s. Upon returning, Chirlian asked again, at which point Joyce unloaded. Chirlian says “he got really quite loud, other people in our group who were in the other room could hear him.”
“He was physically quite close. He’s a big bloke and I’m 5″6 and coming up on 60 years-old. I was pretty shocked.”
@TonyHWindsor Just saw Barnaby Joyce yell at a constituent to “piss off” at the Top Pub in Uralla. #auspol #QandA pic.twitter.com/U0tS4dxhcN
— Daniel Robins (@danrobins7) June 9, 2016
Another witness provided some form of justification, claiming Chirlian and a friend “were absolutely in his face. They wouldn’t go away.
He asked them to go away and, yes, he did say ‘piss off’ eventually but they kept following him.We yelled across to the bar staff to intervene but it was more about getting the woman away from Barnaby Joyce.”
Bring on July 2. Please.
Photo: Mark Kolbe / Getty.
