Barnaby Joyce has been at the centre of a heated and “shouty” interview with ABC’s Patricia Karvelas.
The Nationals backbencher was asked to address the controversial $80 million deal conducted by the government during his time as water minister, which has caused a major uproar on an otherwise smooth election campaign by the Coalition.
The 20-minute long radio interview saw Joyce refuse to answer questions over the incident and whether he had determined where the profits of the taxpayer-funded water buyback would ultimately end up.
Growing increasingly frustrated, Joyce began to raise his voice and proceeded to give the same response to each question, saying the questions should be forwarded to his Labor counterparts Tony Burke and Penny Wong.
One of his answers to Karvelas’ questions was “Labor, Labor, Labor, Labor, Labor.”
After having enough of Joyce’s behaviour, Karvelas requested: “Let’s just calm down.”
“Let’s just do this respectfully,” she said, saying she wanted to avoid a “shouty interview”.
Joyce defended the multimillion-dollar buyback, saying, “These are the people who were offering water for us to buy.”
But he then repeated the same words uttered by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, saying that the deal took place at “arm’s length” of himself and other ministers.
“Are you taking me to confessional or do you want the water? The Labor Party bought water off these people, we bought water off these people … people at arm’s length to me made the decision to buy this water,” he said.
Joyce then declined to answer whether the buyback scheme was a wrong decision, forcing Karvelas to tell him that her listeners were “frustrated”.
“I’m trying to be very patient,” she said.
The former Deputy Prime Minister then accused the Radio National host of “ducking and weaving” as she asked about the people who profited off the scheme.
“You’re ducking and weaving, go on, spit it out,” said Joyce.
“Let me finish my question, you keep talking over me,” Karvelas responded. “I do need to finish and complete sentences.”
Joyce, who claimed questions about government beneficiaries of the scheme were about Angus Taylor, said: “I wouldn’t know him if he stood up in my cornflakes”.
Karvelas has been applauded for her handling of the situation, with listeners praising the host on Twitter. Joyce on the other hand, didn’t put on his best show.
