Senator Joyce: It’s distracting from everything. You can see that where the Labor Party is, its lost sight of the capacity to handle the tiller of government, it doesn’t seem to have its mind on the game and the Australian people are concerned -you can see that. They are concerned that this is not a government, as I’ve said it’s a perverse form of romper Room.
Every time they turn on the television they get a sense of embarrassment – how can I possibly say that that crowd is leading me? They can’t even lead themselves. They have no idea where they’re going themselves. Every day is a catastrophe, every day the media is occupied by the Labor Party trying to manage the Labor party rather than trying to manage the country.
JOURNALIST: A year on, do you think Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor would be rueing their decision to side with Labor?
Senator Joyce: Well that’s a question for Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor. Well I’ve seen the cut of Mr Windsor’s jib when lately he’s made the sort of sordid comments - I don’t know whether Tony Abbott said it or he didn’t say it - Tony Abbott says he didn’t, but when people start political pillow talking you know that they’re not really interested in the nation, they’re interested in personal vendettas and they’re not really concerned where this nations goes.
So I was never really convinced that Mr Windsor, and I didn’t really know Mr Oakeshott, but I was never really convinced that Mr Windsor had our nations future in mind and I don’t think he’s really going to change- I think he’s belligerently sulking as he sees our nation go down the tube.
If he was a person of a different character, he would quite obviously do the honourable thing and say, I think that will do, we need a change. I might refer him to the actions of another person who was an independent; in 1941 Arthur Coles he was actually bringing down a person from my party who was the leader of, Arthur Fadden. When you read his speech from the Hansard, Arthur Coles said I think this government is directionless, I think we have to do the right thing by the nation, I cast myself at the will of my own electorate and that was the end of the Fadden government. That’s how an independent that really does have the vision of their country at the forefront of their mind- that’s how they act. How Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor act is another thing altogether.
JOURNALIST: Senator, what did you think of the comments from the US Embassy about your self?
Senator Joyce: I always wanted to be on Wikileaks. I was always annoyed that I hadn’t quite cracked it, but I’m there now. To be honest, I think it’s a great advertisement for me. I feel like making a media release out of it and sending it around to all the people in regional Australia saying “I told you I was giving them the poos”.
JOURNALIST: Do you agree with the statement by Clive Palmer; that we should have on shore processing and just let them in?
Senator Joyce: Clive Palmer is a very decent person and there are things I know about Clive, about the deeper aspects of his character that other people don’t appreciate. I know that he’s a person who gives immense amount of money to charity. As a private citizen he has a right to have his views. I don’t think that it would work, to you know, have an open border policy, but isn’t it a wonderful thing that we can be on the same political side and have an open political discussion about it. It’s the right of the people in the National Party and the Liberal party that you have the liberty of your views and you’re allowed to express them and I’ve expressed mine to Clive and Clive’s expressed his to me and sometimes we agree and sometimes we fervently disagree.
JOURNALIST: Senator, you singled out Tony Windsor just now from the Independents, are you trying to send a message to the voters of New England
Senator Joyce: I think the voters of New England have got them, they don’t need any more messages sent to them, they’ve kind of read the mail. They know where they are and I think that Mr Windsor is going to read the mail at the next election. Even the voters of New England are thinking about their nation, they’re not just thinking about New England, they’re saying this sort of pandemonium palace we’ve got going down here has to come to a conclusion because we need an adult in the room, somewhere there’s got to be somebody with the competency to run Australia. It is not to go on the way it is going, this is out of control.
JOURNALIST: Should they take some responsibility for electing an independent when all the signs pointed to a hung parliament?
Senator Joyce: Well, their vision of Mr Windsor was one that he would actually aspire to their philosophical views. They are obviously people who are conservative; New England is a conservative seat. At times they believed Mr Windsor was going to more conservative that the conservatives, where he ended up is more left than the left and now he is the most able lieutenant of the Labor Party and that’s something that’s just not going to fly in the New England. It would be the same if someone in the Port of Melbourne decided they were in the National Party – it would be a very brief experience.
JOURNALIST: inaudible
Senator Joyce: I’m not thinking of running in the Port of Melbourne.
ENDS