Barnaby Joyce: How fancy French restaurant confirmed he was Covid positive

Why our Deputy Prime Minister says the ‘mild’ Omicron is the Covid strain we need to have after learning he had contracted the virus himself while in the United States.

When Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was jetting around the Covid-ridden United Kingdom and the United States, a visit to a fancy restaurant sealed his virus fate.

His chief of staff Jake Smith had suggested dinner at “a lovely French restaurant’ while they were in Washington DC in December.

“I’m from Danglemah – I’m not a culture vulture,” he said.

“He said ‘what’d ya think of that (meal)’ and I said I felt it was ‘pretty ordinary actually, to be frank’. And the wine, it was off.”

Barnaby_Joyce tested positive for Covid in December while in the United States. He was forced into isolation while on official business. The Deputy Prime Minister believes he became infected in the United Kingdom, coming into contact with foreign and Australian dignitaries before flying to Washington.

Mr Joyce said his staffer was “pretty peed off” because he had paid a pretty penny for the meal.

He said Mr Smith recounted the conversation with his deputy chief of staff Mary Balzary.

“‘Barnaby, he’s such a pig, I took him out to dinner (at a nice restaurant) and he said the food wasn’t very good’,” Mr Joyce said, relaying a later conversation between the two staff.

“He said, ‘I wonder if he’s got Covid’.

“Mary said, ‘as long as he didn’t say the wine was off’. He went ‘he did’ and she said ‘he’s got it’.”

Mr Joyce, who had also experienced a temperature and lethargy before being officially diagnosed, said he could not be sure which Covid strain he had but he was double vaccinated.

He described his symptoms as a “2.5 to 3 out of 10 flu”.

But he said Queensland was blessed the Omicron variant was the dominant strain despite having an RO-7 compared to Delta’s 1.2/1.3.

“That means it’s highly virulent. That means for every person who gets it, it’s likely to infect another seven people,” he said of the pace of the variant’s was spreading.

“It’s just off the scale but we’re lucky it’s incredibly mild.

“It could be a blessing in disguise because it’s probably going to be followed by maybe a more dangerous and virulent form the more Omicron gets around.”

Dawson LNP candidate Andrew Willcox and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce at the Pioneer River in Mackay this week. Picture: Contributed

Mr Joyce said he was not campaigning for or against Covid lockdowns but denounced the rhetoric from parties like One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party as ineffective noise.

“People have to understand how government works. Whether you like lockdowns or don’t like lockdowns, there is a minister who is actually responsible for it,” he said.

“A minister is selected by the PM, the PM is picked by the party.

“None of this involves independents, they don’t have a seat at the cabinet table, they don’t take submissions into cabinet, they don’t have a say in the joint party room, they are not a part of the national security cabinet, they are merely people who scream obscenities from the coffee shop, just rant and rave and scream.

“They stick their finger up in the air and see which way the wind is blowing and scream in that direction.

Barnaby Joyce during Question Time in the House of Representatives in Parliament House Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

“They don’t actually achieve anything but they sound great.

“For me, when you talk about lockdowns, I want Australia to get its freedoms, no matter where you live; back to where they were before Covid as quickly as possible.

“You have to respect other people who have comorbidities and understand your rights don’t give you the right to hurt another person because that’s where your rights stop.

“The reality is, Omicron, for some people it will be a devastating and horrible thing because it will cause sickness and sometimes death. But Omicron is a mild form of Covid.”

Originally published as Barnaby Joyce: How fancy French restaurant confirmed he was Covid positive