Barnaby Joyce’s brutal sledge against Sydney

Barnaby Joyce has delivered a brutal sledge against Sydney in an extraordinary and impassioned spray about China and climate change.

Barnaby Joyce has delivered a brutal sledge against Sydney in an extraordinary and impassioned spray about China and climate change.

The Deputy Prime Minister gave the Harbour City a hiding while campaigning in Darwin on Saturday, arguing Labor’s climate policies would whack people in the Top End.

The Business Council of Australia has backed Labor’s climate plans, but Mr Joyce continues to claim the carbon safeguard strategy amounts to a tax.

He urged people to “wake up”.

“You guys are going to pay them the money and there is something perverse about that because you guys are the ones that actually need the money,” he told reporters.

“This is where we’ve got to develop, I know.

“Maybe the Labor Party should come up with a tax that goes in the other direction because they’ve got the Harbour Bridge, they’ve got the Opera House, they’ve got the parks, they’ve got the art galleries, they’ve got all that social infrastructure.”

Mr Joyce then switched gears from climate change to global conflict.

“Here is where we’ve got to be investing because the future of our nation - and we see the geopolitical circumstances before us whether it’s in Ukraine or what the Chinese are trying to do - we need this place to become as strong as possible as quickly as possible,” he said.

“Because we’re not going to defend the nation from an art gallery in Sydney, I can assure you of that.”

Barnaby Joyce says “we’re not going to defend the nation from an art gallery in Sydney”.

Mr Joyce and the National Party are desperate to win the NT seat of Lingiari following the resignation of Labor stalwart Warren Snowdon.

Lingiari, the nation’s largest electorate, spans more than a million square kilometres, covering almost the entire territory bar Darwin and parts of Palmerston.

Labor won the seat with a 5.5 per cent margin in the 2019 federal election.

His latest comments come after he declared he doesn’t care if people like him, he’s not competing in Married At First Sight and he thinks a bloke called Ben is exceptionally handsome in a bizarre 14-minute speech to voters in Rockhampton this week.

The Deputy Prime Minister is renowned for his off-the-cuff and colourful remarks and his stump speech on Wednesday was no different.

Here are 14 quintessential Barnaby-isms he unleashed in the 14-minute speech.

“It’s quite simple isn’t it? This is not a popularity contest. This is not My Kitchen Rules. This is not I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. And it’s most certainly not Married At First Sight.”

Starting off strong, Mr Joyce’s comparison was met with laughter from the audience. He was trying to make the point that the election had higher stakes than some of Australia’s highest-rating reality programs. A fair point when you consider how many Aussies have turned off from politics altogether.

“We (need to) make a choice about whether the tall bald Peter Dutton is stronger than Brendan O’Connor.”

He continued, listing off the Labor frontbench and comparing them to their Coalition counterparts. While Scott Morrison was called “strong”, and Josh Frydenberg “competent”, all Mr Dutton got was “tall and bald”.

“They don’t care whether they like them or not. That is irrelevant. Totally and utterly irrelevant.”

He circled back to his previous point, claiming that it was “irrelevant” if voters like the government or even individual politicians. He said all Australians really cared about was a “strong government”.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Prime Minister Scott Morrison campaigning in Rockhampton.

“You’re the patient with the dentist about to put the drill in your mouth. You really don’t care what his views are. You really don’t care whether you like them or not. You just want to make sure he gets the right tooth and he doesn’t put the drill through your mouth.”

It’s not the first time the Deputy Prime Minister has made this point. The first time he likened voting for the Coalition to going to the dentist (an odd way to spruik for votes, but there you go). It was in a gee-up to his Coalition colleagues in the last week of parliament.

Mr Morrison has jumped on the comment and rolled it out as well.

“Mr Albanese started with trainwreck number one. Not gotcha questions, basic questions. And it was amazing that after 10 years he didn’t know it … does the homework know what the answer is? Do it diligently. And then for whatever reason he went to the Blues festival. That was a complete car wreck.”

He then hit out at Anthony Albanese’s gaffes in the campaign before …

“Incompetence, weakness, basically Zoolander politics where they think if they can do Blue Steel a bit better than us that somehow they get the gig.

… he launched into a weird but memorable comparison of Labor to “really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking” male model Derek Zoolander.

“I can tell you I can go to other suburbs and they’re not too crash hot on me. I get that. I don’t want to be liked. That’s not my game. I’m not here to be liked.”

The Deputy Prime Minister cracked himself up with this one. He knows that in some parts of the country, like in the Greens heartland of Melbourne, he might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Barnaby Joyce chats with his boss in Rockhampton on Wednesday.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re in the change room for a mighty game. It’s a State of Origin. There is the New South Wales change room. And they’ve got the blue jerseys. And there’s the Queensland changeroom. And we’ve got the red jerseys. Make sense?”

If it doesn’t make sense, let me decode it for you. Blue jerseys = Coalition. Red jerseys = Labor. So is he suggesting Queensland is … Labor country?

“But we have other people in this nation who don’t seem to have any jerseys on. They have a singlet on. And when you say ‘well, which side are you playing for’? And they’ll say ‘well, we’re going to talk to both sides when we’re out in the paddock and make our mind up’.”

Not the first time Mr Joyce has made this analogy either. But he’s basically saying the independents putting up strong challenges across the country aren’t going to tell you which team they’re going to play on until after the election (or the game) has kicked off.

“I can look around the room, some good-looking guys and good-looking girls, but this bloke here, Ben, I know him. He’s a very good-looking man.”

I’m sure Ben appreciated the compliment. Unless he was talking about Ben Stiller, aka the aforementioned Derek Zoolander?

“Everything in this man’s life came from overseas and somebody, somewhere must be putting something on the boat and sending it in another direction or he would be naked and that would be a bad look.”

It’s not entirely clear, but I believe what Mr Joyce is referring to here is the fact that a lot of what Australians purchase is made overseas. He could be suggesting that we make more products here in Australia, but he didn’t expand on it so can’t say for certain.

If you think Mr Joyce was just having a bad day, his way with words continued on Saturday when he delivered a brutal sledge against Sydney in an extraordinary and impassioned spray about China and climate change.

“Maybe the Labor Party should come up with a tax that goes in the other direction because they’ve got the Harbour Bridge, they’ve got the Opera House, they’ve got the parks, they’ve got the art galleries, they’ve got all that social infrastructure.”

Originally published as Barnaby Joyce’s brutal sledge against Sydney