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Barnaby Joyce: Election Gonzo and China Fears

Always looking, and sounding, a touch unhinged, the beetroot-coloured Barnaby Joyce, leader of the Australian Nationals and, for a time now, deputy prime minister, has made a splash. With the federal elections being held on May 21, he does not have much time to commit mischief and befuddle the political vultures. But the National Press Club gave him a chance to make some trouble, a task accomplished with some success.

At stages during his address, it seemed that trouble had followed Joyce. There was sniffing and sniffling. Then a nosebleed, brief intermission and tissues. The Twitterati thought this ominous; political commentators searched for omens about previous pre-election mishaps. “I know you are going to get 1001 photos of me with a Kleenex up my nose, congratulations,” he chirped, on being handed a fresh tissue.

Of more interest, and some bafflement, was the speech itself, a filling of meaty prejudices and concerns about China, a fairly dismissive take on climate change, and a warning about the threat posed by a number of independent candidates that are knocking at the door of traditional conservative seats.

As far as Beijing is concerned, Joyce presents the classic Australian paradox: a pathological suspicion of the Yellow Horde and its strategic interests, but a delight at the voracious appetite they show for Australian commodities. In recent years, Australia’s skewed and distorted pattern of wealth has developed on the back of that particular interest. The same can also be said about the China student market and witless Australian universities lazily disposed to easy cash.

The role played by China in aiding Australian wealth did feature, if only to enable Joyce to speculate wildly as to who would replace it as top customer in the importing of iron ore exports. This proved particularly pertinent on the issue of how Australian commodities were essentially going into Chinese war-making capabilities.

In his answer, Joyce recalled “talking to one of the large miners” and saying that “we have a big new customer.” That customer: Germany. “Germany is a big new customer. And I imagine Germany is using the iron ore for a whole range of things and of course, one the other Germany is redoing, rearming.” When “rearming” and “Germany” are used, however disjointedly, in a sentence, ghosts of wars past stir nervously.

Not, it would seem, now. A Teutonic replacement would be welcome in the face of Beijing’s regional ambitions. Chinese military expansion, Joyce stated unequivocally, was “without a shadow of a doubt” the most important issue facing Australians.

Inventively, and with a flourish, he took the view that China’s conduct in seeking security ties with countries such as the Solomon Islands was simple: the encirclement of Australia. “It is quite obvious through their desire to have military bases that they are starting a process of encircling Australia and that there is a wish, at the very least, to intimidate, or worse, to supplicate Australia.”

Joyce has never quite had the mind or sense to understand the historical basis of China’s own concern of encirclement, a psychic disturbance very much aided by the United States and the recent AUKUS security pact. The same can be said about his understanding of independent candidates, whom he rubbishes as being incapable of understanding national security.

Such novel, absurd and dangerous interpretations on the wishes of a power can become, at a moment’s notice, the bricks and mortar for conflict. “The thing that China will respect is strength. That’s why I say we have to become as strong as possible as quickly as possible. And respecting strength means you have to be strong across all facets of what you do.”

Giving the impression of being far-eyed and sagacious, Barnaby spoke of his role in preventing previous efforts by Chinese entities to acquire Australian assets and muscle in on domestic matters. “I refer to my successful endeavours to stop a Chinese state-owned enterprise takeover of Rio Tinto, our largest iron ore exporter, back as far as 2009.” He then boasted of his support for “changes in foreign investment laws which the Labor Party opposed.”

When asked about the touchy issue of climate change and disagreement within his own party and his Liberal coalition partners, he was unperturbed. Metropolitan, ecology-minded types, despite being threatened by the so-called “teal independents”, would not have their way on the issue of preventing coal projects. “Because what we are doing is … we have got to make sure our nation earns as much money as possible. We can’t do that if we shut down coal exports.” What vision, what clarity.

What about the issue of the Coalition’s “safeguard mechanism” in responding to climate change? In a sense, this looks suspiciously like a version of the demonised carbon tax, an idea considered pestilential in pro-fossil fuel circles. The mechanism requires polluting companies to purchase carbon credits or, in lieu of that, reduce emissions. “It’s like the ceiling on this,” the cryptic Barnaby intoned. “It’s out of the way but it stops you going through the roof. They [Labor] are going to bring the ceiling down to about head level for tall people. And about 215 [companies] are going to start belting their heads on the fans and the lights and being fatally attacked based on that.”

In all the hyperbolic, and at points inscrutable venting, Joyce struggled with the correct pronunciation of Labor opposition leader Anthony Albanese, the man vying to be the next Prime Minister. Several attempts were made, none quite hitting the mark. Labor will be hoping that such misfiring will translate into electoral returns. Given Joyce’s previous successes, this will prove a tall order, notably in regional Australia.

 

 

 

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20 comments

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  1. Phil Pryor

    Nose bleeding from a pisspot porous political pervert like B Joyce is a new normal, unless some backup from an overloaded erection can be analysed or deduced. What a refuse bag of ignorance, incoherence, incomprehensibility, inadequacy and egofixation is this brown dropping from a hun’s sphinctre. A policy of money at all costs indicates that drugs, gambling, brothels (yeah) fat fast food and slave labour will be country party doctrine.

  2. Albos Elbow

    He got the nose bleed from licking Gina Rhinehardt’s arse too much.

    If you want real energy security and not fake The Minister for Burning Fossil Fuel lies about petrol and gas security, we need to move to renewable energy ASAP.
    Renewable energy’s sun, wind and water is not only free, we don’t have to buy it from Facsist Dictators.
    https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/renewable-energy-uptake-surges-globally-despite-war-covid-pandemic-20220512-p5ako7.html

    If you want to get around government fossil fuel corruption, choose which kind of electricity you buy and be able to buy renewable energy at wholesale prices join localvolts.com.

    Contact info@localvolts.com or joe@localvolts.com and get started on saving hundreds of dollars on your energy bills, reducing our carbon emissions and helping us move to net zero sooner.

    Please help spread the news about the growing positive change in energy.

  3. H WHITTON

    Correction required

    The election is on May 21, not 18

  4. The AIM Network

    Thanks for picking that up.

    No matter how many times you proofread something there will always be an obvious one missed.

  5. corvusboreus

    Baranaby Joyce has my heartfelt sympathy for his sudden affliction with chronic spontaneous nosebleeds.

    On a completely different and totally unrelated subject, it would be good practice if politicians on the payroll were routinely and randomly tested for levels of alcohol & other drugs (eg cocaine).

    Just a thought.

  6. GL

    I reckon what’s left of his brain is desperately trying to escape before it’s condemned to death.

  7. corvusboreus

    Another random thought.

    This years Moscow Victory Parade of troops & tanks was quite a moving spectacle, although the numbers cited were down from past years, with around 11000 Russian soldiers participating.

    It provided a useful visual illustration.

    This impressive number is a bit under the lower credible estimates of Russian soldiers thus far killed during their humanitarian mission to liberate & denazify neighbouring Ukraine.

    It is also well under the total number of Russian civilians thus far arrested/incarcerated for daring to call the special military operation a “war”, or having the traitorous temerity to suggest that it might be going badly.

    A similar parade of Ukrainian wardead would be somewhat smaller, but would also include a significant civilian presence.

  8. New England Cocky

    After that National Press Club event would you be so kind as to explain to me why any self-respecting woman would employ an adulterous, alcoholic misogynist to represent their best interests for the future.

  9. wam

    I do not envy you, NEC, having to sit with your coffee knowing 70% of the people you see around prefer barnaby joyce to represent them in canberra.
    To vote for him denotes an acceptance of his behaviour as normal. The fact that none of my rabbottians think ill of him.

  10. corvusboreus

    NEC,
    I think the answer to your query lies in the definition of ‘representative democracy”.

    As you know, BJ rates highly in Nowendoc (95% in 2016, 85% in 2019)

    Last time I visited the ‘rough ground’ of tromaville downunder, I conducted some informal ‘pubtest’ polling.

    From my position slumped on a dirt floor chained to a wetherbordnine wall, i asked my inbred cannibal captors a variation on that very question.

    “why do you lot keep voting for Barnaby Joyce?”.

    The local sheriff gave a kind of shrugging grunt and continued to strop the set of taxidermy tools (repurposed for organ harvesting) clutched in his webbed hands, but his sisterwife, who was looming attentatively at his shoulder dressed in greasestained bib’n’braces, affixed me with a droopy crossed eye, gave a monotoothed drooling grin, and slavered her response:

    “barnbysh orrite, ee drinksh loik a fish an rootsh loik a rabbit”.

    On the bright side, it seems some Nowendocians would seriously consider voting SFF if dynamite-fishing and hippy-hunting were proffered as policy platforms.

  11. Consume Less

    The concept of climate change is just too woke for Barnaby, anyway the climate is always changing. Wet today, windy tomorrow.

  12. New England Cocky

    @ corvusboreus: Thank you for your heart felt sympathy. Sadly it is true that in the past the Nazional$ have enrolled their sheep as members of the Party to maintain registration with the AEC. I was unaware that the Nowendoc cattle were also gifted preferential memberships because their brains were not shorn every year.

    The good citizens of Nowendoc suffered an invasion of Police some years ago when the notorious felon Malcolm Naden was roaming and living off the land to escape capture. The NSW Police declined to attend a cctv real time sighting to extend this economic surge to the local one shop economy because all the Police Task Force went home for Christmas with their families in Sydney & elsewhere.

  13. corvusboreus

    NEC,
    I remember the hubub when Mr Naden went ‘Jimmy Blacksmith’.
    There was some amusing footage of NSWPF ‘operators’ dressed up in brand-new shop-bought polyester ‘ghillie suits’, trying to look all stealth-tactic competent whilst they glistened and rustled like cellophane wrapping.

    Ps i think the real reason the Naden-hunting Police Taskforce left Nowendoc prematurely was that they were tired of being served sump-oil coffee & pies containing human fingertips.

  14. Canguro

    @NEC & @corvus; now waiting for the Nowendocians to wade into this thread.

    I read the ‘how to road-test’ a ghillie suit advice; you simply walk into the wearer, and then say, ‘oh sorry, I didn’t see you standing there’.

  15. corvusboreus

    Canguro,
    Although Nowendoc is a place where a hunting rifle peeks out from behind every twitching curtain, insulting it on the internet is as safe as slagging off the Amish on digital subscription TV.
    I gather even the local postie ‘delivers’ to Nowendoc by chucking the mailbag out the window as he drives past the turnoff.

  16. wam

    Good point consume less, weather visibly changes but I haven’t heard of a climate changing
    We, in darwin, are still Aw.
    NEC and corvus are still nowendoc Cfb with michael one up as Cfa
    R. S. Crosbie1, D. W. Pollock2,*, F. S. Mpelasoka3, O. V. Barron2, S. P. Charles2, and M. J. Donn2 (CSIRO)
    tropical climate types would increase from 8.8% to 9.1%;
    – arid climate types would increase from 76.5% to 81.7%;
    – temperate climate types would decrease from 14.7% to 9.2%;
    – cold climate types would decrease from 0.016% to 0.001%.
    so someone’s climate will change and we look like getting warmer????

  17. Canguro

    wam, sometimes I wonder who you think your audience is, or whether you ever consider do you actually have an audience? One of the principles of literate and intelligible writing is keeping your potential reader in mind, as in… is what I’m saying here understandable and comprehensible, and does it make sense, and is it relatively easy to scan or even read at depth?

    Much of what you write is – said in the spirit of maybe, possibly, helping you with future efforts – gibberish, a fabric of words spun in a fashion that is, essentially, senseless.

    One wonders why you’d impose that on your potential audience?

    Taking the above post, what on earth is the reader supposed to make of the following:

    We, in darwin, are still Aw
    NEC and corvus are still nowendoc Cfb
    michael one up as Cfa
    R. S. Crosbie1, D. W. Pollock2, F. S. Mpelasoka3, O. V. Barron2, S. P. Charles2, and M. J. Donn2 (CSIRO)

    …along with the rest, arid (& temperate, cold climate) types would increase/decrease .. etc. etc.?

    It’s nonsensical.

    I could be totally wrong about you, and I readily concede every court needs a jester, so forgive me if your efforts are a deliberate endeavour designed to inject a sense of absurdity into an otherwise relatively serious (but not always) framework of public commentary. All best wishes.

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