I am never particularly concerned about whether I am punching up or punching down when making jokes at the expense of senior government ministers. These people are rich, powerful, and could presumably dial a number and have some sort of AFP Secret Service guy kick down my door and punch a hole clean through my head. The power dynamic there means it is basically impossible for me to bully them — no matter what I say, they remain an influential politician and I remain some random guy on a laptop in Queensland that writes for a website predominately focused on celebrity beefs.
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I have enough questions currently about the state of Barnaby Joyce’s personal life and state of mind that I am — not for the first time — genuinely concerned about the risk of being too mean to him. Obviously, I do not know Joyce personally; as you might imagine, we travel in different circles. I can only infer about his private life from his posts on Twitter and, buddy, they are not looking good.
The main event is a series of two tweets from this evening, but here’s a little warm up from Sunday:
#ifireaalycaredil’ldgivemyrealname.
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
ifireaalycaredil’ldgivemyrealname
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
ifireaalycaredil’ldgivemyrealname
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
ifireaalycaredil’ldgivemyrealname
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
ifireaalycaredil’ldgivemyrealname
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
It’s not entirely clear what he was trying to say or why he stopped doing it as a hashtag or how come he didn’t notice the typos but, clearly, he was having a lovely time at the races at Scone:
Great crowd at Scone Races. pic.twitter.com/N3oB1BFeEN
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 12, 2019
This morning brought us a similarly comprehensible tweet:
Dear @roboakeshott I’m leaving today. Went swimming and I should lose some weight then I thought what you would say, “beautiful in its ugliness”. So many memories Rob; picnics, sunblock, you supporting the Green/Labor/Independent alliance. Now a future of electric cars. Cheers
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 13, 2019
Not entirely sure what he means by this but I do know that the man really hates electric cars. I think.
Tonight, Joyce went on the attack against the bloody communist ABC and their extremely biased Vote Compass. He did this by criticising a graphic on The Drum, which came from WomenVote Australia, who are not at all affiliated with the ABC, let alone with the web app they use to tell you how your beliefs line up with political parties:
Golly gosh wow wee ABC’s Vote Compass rates Labor as “provide detailed polices likely to make meaningful progress against issues” on? Everything!!! We are all so lucky that they are so balanced and funded by? All of us!!! Thank you ABC Vote Labor Compass pic.twitter.com/k6fxeXcS6u
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 14, 2019
Seemingly not tipped off by the fact that it was labelled as such, it took someone kindly informing Joyce of his error for him to realise that he made one:
Matthew Kozal tells me it was not ABC Vote Compass, it was on ABC’s The Drum.
— Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) May 14, 2019
Some incredible sincere contrition on display here. I applaud it.
Who is this lovely Matthew Kozal, who so helpfully put Joyce on the straight and narrow? By all appearances, ‘Matthew Kozal’ is Michael Koziol, a reporter for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald:
https://twitter.com/michaelkoziol/status/1128243334210658305
What on earth is happening to this man.
