Showing posts with label Barnaby Joyce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barnaby Joyce. Show all posts

Wednesday 14 February 2018

Is Turnbull laying the groundwork to throw Joyce under a bus if it becomes neccessary?


A very careful choice of words on the part of the Prime Minister leaves the door open to walk back support of his Deputy Prime Minister if Joyce is found to be telling the Australian Parliament untruths.

House of Representatives Hansard, excerpts, 13 February 2018:

Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:25): The honourable member refers to some statements attributed to a spokesman of mine yesterday. Those statements, I'm advised, followed a background discussion. They were not authorised by me, but I will answer the question. As the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed in his statement of Saturday, 10 February, and again in his statement this morning, The Nationals are responsible for decisions relating to staffing the office of Nationals members. He confirmed that the Prime Minister's office has an administrative role in informing the Department of Finance of changes. All ministers are bound by the ministerial standards.

All ministers are bound by the ministerial standards. The Deputy Prime Minister has today explained his circumstances as it relates to the standards, and I refer you to that statement. I would add that whether somebody is a partner of another for the purposes of clause 2.23 is, of course, a question of fact. The facts of the relationship which you're referring to are, of course, known to the Deputy Prime Minister. It is his responsibility to address it and comply with the standards, and he addressed that in his statement today.  [my yellow highlighting]

Sunday 11 February 2018

Why so many voters are annoyed by Barnaby Joyce's statement* that his private life is a private matter


When it influences staff positions and even contributes to winners and losers in a reshuffle, Barnaby's affair with a younger staffer is not a private matter” [Stephen Mayne on Twitter, 9 February 2018]

During the lengthy extramarital relationship with a member of his staff Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals MP for New England Barnaby Joyce:

* arranged for a change of employment for the staffer in this relationship. She was employed at taxpayers’ expense by another federal minister, in a senior position specifically created for her with a six-figure annual salary;

* successfully sought a second staff position for his former staffer when that federal minister was forced to resign from the front bench while a dual citizenship claim was resolved. This second position was with the Nationals Chief Whip - resulting in him having two people in his office doing the same job at taxpayers' expense;

* left his wife of 24 years and their four children;

* began living rent-free with the now pregnant former staffer in an Armidale townhouse owned by multi-millionaire ­businessman Greg ­Maguire who himself attracted some political controversy in 2004-2006 concerning potential breaches of the Electoral Act;

* allegedly assaulted a member of the public in a pub in his electorate for referring to the former staffer as his “mistress”;

* publicly admitted in parliament to separating from his wife but not to the extramarital relationship; and


Only the fact that his marriage had ended could be rightly said to be a private matter.

Five of the seven dot points above go to issues concerning fitness for office, possible corrupt conduct and what may be an in-kind political donation in a by-election year and not the post-election "gift" listed on the Register of Members' Interests on 3 January 2018.

Those issues are not private. 

As much as he wants to, Barnaby Joyce cannot pretend to be a victim of unfair media scrutiny.


BACKGROUND

Fifty year-old Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce, an accountant by profession, came into the Australian Senate in 2004 and his election appears to have not been without some passing controversy at the time.

He resigned from the Senate and was elected to the House of Representatives for New England, New South Wales, for the first time in 2013 then re-elected in 2016. 

Joyce refused to step down as deputy prime minister and refused to resign from the Australian Parliament once the New Zealand Government confirmed he was a citizen by descent of that country and he was referred to the High Court of Australia concerning the claim of dual citizenship. He continued to sit in the House of Representatives in contravention of the Australian Constitution.

His election was ruled void on 27 October 2017 under section 44 of the Australian Constitution. The High Court of ruling him ineligible from 2 June 2016, having found he held New Zealand and well as Australian citizenship since birth.


Having renounced his New Zealand citizenship in August 2017 he was elected at the New England by-election on 2 December 2017.

* Barnaby Joyce Statement 

Wednesday 8 March 2017

Nationals MP for New England Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority relocation is an embarrassing mess


The Canberra Times, 1 March 2017:


It was also revealed on Tuesday at a Senate Estimates hearing that the Authority is now having to look overseas for regulatory scientists and a new office block will have to be built in the northern NSW town to accommodate the agency with none of the town's existing buildings suitable.

So much for blatantly trying to buy your re-election, by relocating  a Canberra government department into your own electorate without proper planning or consultation .

Sunday 30 October 2016

The Desperation Of Barnaby Joyce: letter publicly released at a cost to Australian taxpayers of an est. $293 per word plus legal fees



The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 2016:

Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon has fought for the release of the letter, which was emailed directly to Mr Joyce and Tony Abbott's former head of department Michael Thawley, since the independent Information Commissioner ruled it should be made available.
Mr Joyce's department fought that ruling, spent $80,000 on engaging Ernst & Young to review its public information processes, and then fought the matter through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal before giving up the fight just after Parliament rose for two weeks on Friday.
"This letter shows Paul Grimes was deeply concerned about Barnaby Joyce's behaviour. He was challenging Joyce's integrity," Mr Fitzgibbon said on Monday.
"He clearly thought what Joyce did was not appropriate. This letter indicates he was being bullied.
"What Barnaby Joyce did was to sack Paul Grimes to save himself."
The Deputy Prime Minister's office stressed that Mr Joyce did not sack Mr Grimes, rather Mr Abbott asked him to stand aside on advice of Mr Thawley.

Thursday 12 May 2016

Nationals doing what Nationals do best - claiming political credit for the work of others


The story so far…….

The Inverell Times, 6 May 2016:

SENATOR John Williams stood by his comments on social media on Thursday, which accused Independent candidate Tony Windsor of falsely claiming credit for the funding of Bindaree Beef’s bio-digester program.
“Tony Windsor claims credit for Bindaree Beef digester funding but it was Barnaby Joyce who actually got the funding!” Senator William’s post on Twitter read, and Wacka declared it as absolute fact……
Funding through the Gillard-Rudd governments for Bindaree’s bio-digester program was announced by Mr Windsor at the beginning of July 2013, after the pilot plant had operated successfully for six-months with better than expected results.
Speaking at Tony Windsor’s meeting in Flanders House at Inverell on Wednesday evening, Bindaree’s owner, John McDonald seemed in no doubt about the origins of the funding.
“I’d like to congratulate Tony for what he has done for Bindaree Beef,” he said.
“Julia Gillard, $23 million, just an incredible result that I couldn’t comprehend it.
“The problems we’ve got, we’re only a very, very small company, we’re fighting outside our boundaries. We’re competing with the biggest companies in the world and at this stage we’re struggling to get the Prime Minister to complete the project.”

Now Barnaby Joyce was a Senator for Queensland from July 2005 until August 2013 when he resigned from parliament, so it is highly unlikely that he was capable of securing that $23-million “discretionary” grant awarded to Bindaree Beef.

In fact, because Tony Windsor was the sitting Independent Member for New England at the time (and was part of the minority Rudd-Gillard Labor Government) it is more likely that he positively contributed to this particular grant coming Bindaree Beef’s way in July 2013.  

Indeed Tony Windsor is on the record in 2013 stating that he had lobbied then industry minister Greg Combet to get the grant and, that he had “worked with Bindaree for two years” to make the program happen.

In November 2013 Bindaree Beef began lobbying the Abbott Government for an additional $23 million grant.

By then the new Member for New England was Barnaby Joyce MP – having been elected to the House of Representatives at the September 2013 federal election.

The Abbott Government seems to have delayed paying the original $23 million grant dollars to Bindaree Beef for twelve months and, the request for an further $23 million was apparently reduced by the Liberal-Nationals government to $15 million in repayable co-finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.  

What appears to be the facts in this case is that the Gillard Government made an enforceable grant to Bindaree Beef in the last 66 days of Labor’s term in office which the Abbott Government eventually had to honour and, the politician who successfully lobbied on behalf of Bindaree in 2013 was Tony Windsor.

Thursday 10 March 2016

A look back at Deputy-Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce


Now that Tony Windsor has announced he will stand at the 2016 federal election as an independent candidate in the New England electorate, it is perhaps time to briefly recap Nationals MP for New England and Deputy-Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s position on some of the issues which may be at play for voters in that seat or go to perceptions of his gravitas or otherwise.

Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce entered the Australian Parliament in 2005 as a senator for Queensland and resigned to contest the NSW seat of New England in 2013, a seat which was vacant due to retirement of its member Tony Windsor.

Until September 2013 he was a member of the Opposition.

A  former accountant, he is a man of property with a residence and commercial property in St. George, Queensland and two rural properties in Barradine on the Liverpool Plains, NSW.

In the first half of last year taxpayers spent $912,269.95 meeting his parliamentary entitlements claims, including family members travel totaling $12,818.80 over those six months.

SELECTED JOYCE:

MICHAEL BOWERS: It is fair to say that you need to be in politics for a fairly long time, generally speaking, before we have enough cartoons to do a Talking Pictures. You've been here less than a year, I think, and we've got a wealth of material. Did it stun you how much interest there was in you when you came to Parliament?
SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE: Probably disturbed me a little bit. It disturbed me that I was so ugly…..
SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE: In a funny way you are sort of happy with that. When you do cross the floor it is amazing the abuse you get from your own side and the things they scream at you. When I went to the hospital for that check-up and there was someone from my own side who screamed out, "I hope you do die, you so-and-so!"
MICHAEL BOWERS: Who did you sit next to when you crossed the floor.
SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE: You don't really look. The person I sat next to I remember they said, "This is so cool," and I went, "This is so dangerous!"
[ABC TV Insiders, “Talking Pictures” segment,19 February 2006]

The major reserves of coal in the world are located in the United States, China and India, and those countries are where the jobs will go when this Labor government’s ETS is introduced. The government will be exporting the jobs of Australian working families to the United States of America and to China. Mongolia will not have an ETS, and it will be a big exporter of coal. We will have direct attacks from Indonesia on Australian exports. Indonesia has become very capable in taking over Australia’s share of coal exports. South Africa has the ability to deliver metallurgical, coking and thermal coal. [Senate Hansard, 12 March 2009, 3.32pm]

BARNABY JOYCE, NATIONALS' SENATE LEADER: The Australian Government would never be allowed to buy a mine in China. So why would we allow the Chinese Government to buy and control a key strategic asset in our country? Stop the Rudd Labor Government from selling Australia. [ABC TV 7.30 Report, 17 March 2009]

The outspoken Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce is now the oppositions finance spokesman and he's told AM he favours banning Chinese state-owned companies from investing in Australia's resources sector. And he likes the idea of breaking up the power of the big four banks in Australia by toughening divestiture laws in the banking sector. He has also raised the spectre of the United States not paying it's debts and causing a global economic meltdown. [ABC Radio AM, 11 December 2009]

The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has bowed to pressure and booted the Senator from the critical role after months of gaffes by Barnaby Joyce.
But the Senator insists he did a good job and today he's condemning anonymous sources on his own side of politics for white-anting. [ABC The World Today, 26 March 2010]

This is part of where we are off to in this insane world. What will this world look like if they stay there? What on earth will Australia look like if this crowd stays there? Their own people cannot believe them. They have walked all over the left; to the right they look absolutely absurd. The NBN is another complete absurdity. The only thing we can do to fix it is get rid of them. [Senate Hansard, 11 September 2012, 4.29pm]

Hansard records show that Joyce mentioned the National Broadband Network approximately 69 times as an Opposition senator but never once on the floor of the House of Representatives to date.

Senator Faulkner says that I deny climate change. I do not deny climate change at all. I just deny that they have the capacity to change it back. I was watching the weather intently over the Christmas break and since the carbon tax it seems to be around about where we left it last time. I thought that it was all going to be better now that the carbon tax is in. I thought that we had climate nirvana, but it is about where we left it. I want my money back. What happened to the weather? It was supposed to be fixed up by now after the carbon tax! [Senate Hansard, 11 February 2013, 4.23pm]

Hansard records Joyce mentioning climate change approximately 56 times as an Opposition senator but only once in passing as a government MP and Minister for Agriculture in the House of Representatives. He has never mentioned the Coalition Government’s “Direct Action” policy which replaced Labor’s carbon reduction scheme

Yes. If there is nothing that needs to be answered, that is fair enough. We just need to clear the air; that is all. We just need to clear the air and get it off the cards. It is now very important that this piece of legislation goes through and that the people around Kiruna, the people around Breeza, the people around Nea, the people around Werris Creek and the people around Quirindi clearly understand that we support this legislation—because they will be reading this; you can bet your life on it—and that Xavier Martin, John Lyall and even Tim Duddy understand that we are in support of this legislation. They can communicate to the people of the area that we support this legislation and, in supporting this legislation, that we clearly show that the coalition in New England are trying to work to resolve issues. Hopefully, they will have a strong hand in a future coalition government to continue the work that needs to be done to make sure that we get the proper balance right. [Senate Hansard, 16 May 2013, 3.50pm]

BARNABY JOYCE: The other one is about apparently the sexiest man alive, and that's not me. Not that I needed to tell you that.
WILL OCKENDEN: A quick look through some old sexiest politician polls does confirm the Minister's comments.
So when Barnaby Joyce was talking sexy, he had someone else in mind.
BARNABY JOYCE: Which is a gentleman by the name of John Christopher Depp, 51 years old otherwise aka Jack Sparrow and he has decided to bring into our nation two dogs without actually getting the proper certification and the proper permits required. Basically it looks like he snuck them in.
WILL OCKENDEN: The two Yorkshire terriers Boo and Pistol are believed to have arrived in Australia last month, and weren't declared to customs and didn't pass quarantine.
BARNABY JOYCE: We found out he snuck them in because we saw them taking it to a poodle groomer.
WILL OCKENDEN: Now the dogs have discovered, Barnaby Joyce has given Johnny Depp 50 hours to remove them from the country, or else.
BARNABY JOYCE: Mr Depp has to either take his dogs back to California or we're going to have to euthanise them. [ABC Radio The World Today, 14 May 2015]

MARK COLVIN: The Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce's decision to oppose a Chinese backed coal mine has reignited debate about the leadership of the National Party.
Mr Joyce has been widely assumed to be a likely successor should Warren Truss retire.
Mr Joyce has argued strongly against the Environment Minister Greg Hunt's conditional approval the Shenhua Watermark project.
He's specified that his concerns stem from his position as Agriculture Minister, not because the project's in his electorate.
PM has spoken to a number of Nationals MPs who believe the question has damaged his standing internally, and to Liberals who say it's further evidence he shouldn't succeed as the Nationals' leader. [ABC Radio PM, 14 July 2015]

Hansard records Joyce only mentioned the Shenhua mining site once in the Senate Chamber and never to date on his feet in the House of Representatives.

NEW England MP Barnaby Joyce says the Coalition's "not ruling anything in or out" when it comes to matching Labor's promise on the multibillion-dollar Gonski funding agreements, but maintains money isn't the only factor in a successful education system.
Labor has put education on the front lines of the upcoming federal election battle by promising to honour the final two and most lucrative years of the six-year Gonski funding arrangements with the states, something the Coalition has declined to do.
But Mr Joyce denies the pressure's back on his government, arguing Labor hasn't said precisely how they'll pay for the full six years of Gonski.
And to those principals and teachers who say they're already seeing improved results just two years into the funding reforms, the MP says increased funding alone doesn't guarantee better student results. [The Northern Daily Leader, 6 February 2016, p.3]

Hansard records show Joyce has never mentioned “Gonski” funding on the floor of the Senate or during his time as either an MP, minister and Deputy-Prime Minister in the House of Representatives.

Sunday 15 March 2015

Was a whistle about to blow regarding Australian Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce misleading Parliament?


A public servant gives evidence at a Senate Estimates Committee hearing on 5 March 2015.

The Guardian 10 March 2015:

The secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Dr Paul Grimes, has gone on unexpected leave after requesting an extraordinary Senate committee hearing in order to provide “highly pertinent” information about a long-running saga over changes to the official Hansard record of answers given by his minister, Barnaby Joyce.

At the heart of the controversy is Joyce’s insistence to the parliament that corrections to the Hansard record of an incorrect answer he gave regarding drought support loans on 20 October had been made by his staff, without his knowledge, and that he had asked for the changes to be reversed when he became aware that they had been made.

The opposition agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, has been questioning whether Joyce did know about, or request, the changes – an allegation which, if proven, would mean Joyce had committed the sackable offence of misleading the House of Representatives.

Fitzgibbon has made freedom of information requests for information and documents relating to the process of changing the Hansard, and Grimes’ “highly pertinent” information related to documents not provided as a result of those requests.

Staff in the Department of Agriculture were advised Grimes had gone on leave on Friday afternoon, without usual information about the duration of his absence. Government and departmental sources said the leave was “unexpected”.

In the letter to the committee chair, obtained by Guardian Australia, Grimes wrote that he had suspected at least one document had not been provided as a result of the FOI request and that he also had “further relevant information”.

“Subsequent actions (in particular, the tabling of the document by the minister in the house of representatives on Tuesday 24 February) and my further inquiries within the department, including new information my officers had not previously provided to me and a telephone call with the minister’s chief of staff, have confirmed by concerns to have been correct,” Grimes wrote on 2 March.

“Without my intervention I considered there was great danger of the committee being inadvertently misled as to the existence of such a document, which it now seems was never released under FOI.

“I have further relevant information that would, I believe, be highly pertinent to the committee’s consideration of the broad context in which I considered that the further evidence I provided was necessary.”
But when the committee reconvened last Wednesday as a result of Grimes’s request – with a much larger turnout of Coalition senators than normal – Grimes did not provide significant new evidence. Some of the committee’s questions were taken on notice, meaning written answers will be provided by mid-April.

During that hearing, Labor’s Doug Cameron, questioning Grimes and indicating that he was reading from Grimes’s letter to the committee chair, said: “But you do also go on to indicate, ‘I have further relevant information that would, I believe, be highly pertinent to the committee’s consideration of the broad context in which I considered that the further evidence I provided was necessary.’ Then you say, ‘This includes specific information relating to the original alterations made to Hansard and the multiple actions I took personally at the time to seek rectification, including a personal meeting with the minister before the alterations became public.’”.....

His minister’s response on Friday 13 March 2015:



Monday 29 July 2013

So Barnaby Joyce is in the Clarence Valley today



Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Coalition’s candidate for New England at the forthcoming federal lower house election, while clinging on to his senate seat until the last possible moment is down in the Clarence Valley today opening fellow Nationals Kevin Hogan’s Grafton campaign office.

It is a wonder Joyce would show his face in the Valley, given he sat on the Senate RRAT Committee inquiry into additional water supplies for south-east Queensland where he made it plain at that time that he was not adverse to any proposal to steal Clarence freshwater so that his Queensland mates could continue their unsustainable irrigation practices [April-August 2007].

He also voted against The Greens motion in the Senate which read in part:

"That the Senate:....(b) calls on the Federal Government to: (i) abandon plans for damming the Clarence, Tweed, Richmond and Mann Rivers;" [C'wealth Hansard,Senate,proof issue,19 August 2007,p.p. 33-34].

He was still including mention of the Clarence catchment in his discussions on water supply in 2008:

"You can't create water with money. That means you have to think about bringing it from somewhere else, like the Gulf or the Clarence." [The Land, 13 August 2008]

While according to The Clarence Valley Review on 20 February 2013 the leaked  ‘100 Dams’ draft consultation paper mentioned the Clarence River catchment area:


Joyce has this to say about these latest dam proposals:


Monday 10 September 2012

Why is "our" Luke being overlooked?

A piece in today's Sydney Morning Herald examines the prospects of Barnaby "Loose Cannon" Joyce moving to the House of Representatives and replacing Warren Truss as leader of the Nationals.

If the coalition wins the next election Joyce, or whoever leads the Nationals, would become Deputy PM and, heaven forbid, Acting PM when that blokey bloke (sorry, Julie Bishop, but you ain't in the hunt for the top job ever, ever!) takes leave to go OS and visit such places as the Vatican which would have to be near the top of his list of must-visit places and check with his Boss that church and legislators are sleeping securely in the same bed.

But, as a real "insult" for Luke Hatsuyker, the Member for Cowper on the NSW north coast, and his supporters the Herald looks at who else might lead the Nationals after Truss's demise and Luckless Luke didn't rate a mention.

The Herald piece stated, "Darren Chester, from Gippsland, Michael McCormack, from Riverina, Fiona Nash, the senator who is still considering her own lower house tilt by running for Hume, and even Richard Torbay, drafted to take on Tony Windsor in New England, are all mentioned as potential candidates."

See!! There's no mention of Luke!!!

C'mon Luke, show some gumption, develop a backbone, and make a run for the Nationals' top post.