Barnaby Joyce

The Honourable Barnaby Joyce MP
17th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
Incumbent
Assumed office 18 February 2016
Prime Minister	Malcolm Turnbull
Preceded by	Warren Truss
Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources
Incumbent
Assumed office 18 September 2013
Prime Minister	Tony Abbott Malcolm Turnbull
Preceded by	Joel Fitzgibbon
Leader of the National Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 February 2016
Deputy	Fiona Nash
Preceded by	Warren Truss
Deputy Leader of the National Party
In office 13 September 2013 – 11 February 2016
Leader	Warren Truss
Preceded by	Nigel Scullion
Succeeded by	Fiona Nash
Leader of the National Party in the Senate
In office 18 September 2008 – 8 August 2013
Deputy	Nigel Scullion
Preceded by	Nigel Scullion
Succeeded by	Nigel Scullion
Senator for Queensland
In office 1 July 2005 – 8 August 2013
Preceded by	Len Harris
Succeeded by	Barry O'Sullivan
Member of the Australian Parliament for New England
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 September 2013
Preceded by	Tony Windsor
Personal details
Born	Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce (1967-04-17) 17 April 1967 Tamworth, New South Wales
Political party	National Party (Federal) Liberal National Party (State, 2010-13)
Spouse(s)	Natalie Joyce
Alma mater	University of New England (BFinAdmin)
Profession	Accountant, politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism[1]
Military service
Service/branch	Australian Army Reserve
Years of service	1994–99
Unit	Royal Queensland Regiment

Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce (born 17 April 1967) is an Australian politician who has served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia since 18 February 2016,^[2] as the Leader of the National Party of Australia since 11 February 2016, and as the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources since 21 September 2015. He was sworn in as Minister for Agriculture in the Abbott Government on 18 September 2013. Water Resources was added to his portfolio on 21 September 2015 in the Turnbull Government.^[3]

Prior to entering Parliament Joyce worked as an accountant. At the 2004 Federal Election Joyce was elected as a Senator and represented the state of Queensland from July 2005 until August 2013 as a member of The Nationals. He became leader of The Nationals in the Senate on 17 September 2008, succeeding Nigel Scullion.^[4] As a senator, Joyce crossed the floor nineteen times during the term of the Howard Government.^[5]

In April 2013 Joyce was pre-selected by the National Party to contest the House of Representatives seat of New England in New South Wales for the 2013 federal election. He resigned from the Senate on 8 August 2013^[6] to contest the election and won New England for the Nationals with a margin of 21.1 percent.

Joyce is the only person in the history of the Australian Parliament to have represented one state in the Senate and an electorate in a different state in the House of Representatives.

Early life

Joyce was born in Tamworth, New South Wales, and raised in Woolbrook,^[7][8] as one of six children from a sheep and cattle farming family.^[9] His father, James Joyce, was born in New Zealand and moved to Australia to study veterinary science at the University of Sydney, where he met Joyce's mother, Marie.

Joyce attended St Ignatius' College, Riverview, in Sydney and the University of New England in Armidale, where he resided at St Albert's College and graduated with a Bachelor of Financial Administration degree in 1989.^[9] He served in the Australian Army Reserve from 1994 to 1999. At university Joyce met his wife, Natalie, and they married in 1993. After graduating, Joyce moved around northern New South Wales and Queensland, and at one point worked as a bouncer and later as a farm worker.^[9] He worked in the accounting profession from 1991 to 2005 until he became a senator. He is a fellow of CPA Australia. He and his wife have four daughters and live just outside of Tamworth, New South Wales.^[9]

Career

Senate (2004–2013)

Barnaby Joyce's old office in St George

Joyce was elected to the Senate in the 2004 election representing the National Party; his term commenced on 1 July 2005 and ran until 30 June 2011. He was re-elected at the 2010 election as a member of the Liberal National Party, formed from a merger of the Queensland divisions of the two non-Labor parties.

Joyce in 2007

Joyce regained the seat that the Nationals lost to the One Nation Party in 1998, defeating the One Nation Senator Len Harris. The Liberals won three seats in Queensland. Together with Joyce's election as a National Party Senator, it was the first time since the enlargement of the Senate in 1984 that a party or coalition had won four of the six available Senate seats from a single state.

Joyce won 6.5 percent of the vote on first preferences (see Australian electoral system), well short of the 14.3 percent required for election, but made up for lost ground by the flow of second preferences from eliminated candidates of the Family First and One Nation parties, as well as from the independent candidate, Pauline Hanson. The count attracted considerable media attention because Joyce's election contributed to the ruling Coalition government having control of the Senate for the first time since 1981, a result that few political commentators had expected. One Nation, the Liberal Party and the Democrats had sitting Senators.

Joyce said before taking his seat in July 2005 that he would not be a cipher and that the government should not take his support for granted. Because the Liberals campaigned against Joyce, he never felt bound to the Liberal Party. In particular, he initially expressed misgivings about the government's proposed sale of Telstra, the partially state-owned telecommunications company, and claimed that he would vote against the sale unless he and the rest of the party were satisfied that its service in rural areas was adequate and that privatisation would not adversely affect it.

Joyce's maiden speech to the Senate on 16 August 2005 was widely reported in the Queensland media. He expressed his desire to see the power of Australia's retailing duopoly, Coles Myer and Woolworths Limited, reduced so as to protect small business and consumer rights. He also espoused the virtues of free enterprise, particularly at the small business and family-owned business level. As well, having earlier told a Right to Life conference in July that his greatest goal in public life was to ban "the unfortunate carnage" of abortion, he used his first speech to identify abortion as the "slavery debate of our time".

On 17 August 2005 the government announced a package of A$30 billion to improve telecommunications services in regional and rural areas. On the basis of this, the National Party, in consultation with Joyce, agreed to support the sale of Telstra. This led the Labor Party and Stephen Conroy in particular to label Joyce "Backdown Barney" and "Barnaby Rubble" in an acrimonious parliamentary debate. However the Labor Party never reversed the sale of Telstra when they came to government. Joyce voted with the Government in the Senate on 14 September 2005, to sell the Government's remaining share of Telstra. As the Telstra Sale Legislation had been pursued by the lower house in prior parliamentary sessions with no assistance package for regional Australia it is Joyce who is credited for negotiating and holding out till the multi billion dollar assistance package was delivered so as to attain his vote in the Senate.^[10][11]

Joyce crossed the floor to vote with the Labor and minor parties on 11 October 2005 on two motions concerning the Trade Practices Act 1974. Although both motions were lost 32–32, it was the first time since 1986 that a Government Senator has crossed the floor.

Joyce also said that he would not support the Government's "Voluntary Student Unionism" Bill banning the levying of compulsory service or amenity fees by universities without amendment because he believed it would unfairly disadvantage regional universities . However, Joyce was unsuccessful in his attempt to amend the bill, and subsequently crossed the floor on 9 December 2005 to oppose it. This was ultimately futile as the Government had secured the vote of Family First Senator Steve Fielding.

One of Joyce's major successes was the passage of the Birdsville Amendment, outlawing predatory pricing of big retailers against small business and the capping of share ownership on the sale of Medibank Private to 15% to keep it in Australians hands as well as being at the forefront of the fight to keep Qantas as an Australian publicly listed company.

In October 2006 he again crossed the floor, unsuccessfully moving amendments to the government's cross media ownership laws.^[12]

Following a four-month visit to Antarctica as a member of the External Territories Committee in May 2006 Joyce promoted mining of Antarctica, banned under the Antarctic Treaty. Joyce justified his proposal by saying:^[13]

There's minerals there, there's gold, there's iron ore, there's coal, there's huge fish resources and what you have to ask is: 'Do I turn my head and allow another country to exploit my resource ... or do I position myself in such a way as I'm going to exploit it myself before they get there'.

In defending his position Joyce argued that other nations did not recognise Australia's 42 per cent claim over Antarctica. The proposal was roundly criticised including by Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell and Labor Opposition spokesman, Anthony Albanese.

On 4 January 2016 Federal Labor MP David Feeney made a similar warning in an opinion piece in The Australian newspaper, stating: "There is a fear that the bountiful mineral and oil resources of Antarctica may become an irresistible target for energy-hungry powers." ^[14] Feeney argued that Australia needed to increase its ongoing scientific funding to maintain Australia's claim on these resources.

The only practising accountant in the Coalition, Joyce has a bluntness to the economic debate that raises the ire of his colleagues but has interested the media such as with his statement on the then Rudd government's first stimulus package in 2008, supported at the time by the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, that it would "be spread across the floor on Christmas Day with 'Made in China' written on the back".^[15] The Coalition backed Joyce's position of rejecting later stimulus packages.

Crossing the floor

Publicly, there is a perception that Joyce is a "maverick",^[16] and is someone who is not beholden to the Liberals.^[17] In total, Joyce has crossed the floor 28 times so far during his time in Parliament.^[18] As a Senator, Joyce used the threat of crossing the floor to extract concessions from his own government on various issues, most notably in relation to the sale of Telstra.^[19] The TheyVoteForYou website, which monitors the voting patterns of federal politicians, record that Joyce has "rebelled" against the party whip in 1.1% of divisions.^[20] The following table lists the legislation on which Joyce has crossed the floor, but does not include motions.

By convention, and in accordance with the well established principles of "Collective Responsibility" and "Cabinet Solidarity", all members of Cabinet are obligated to support the position of the Government including on matters of legislation and motions which the Parliament must decide. Therefore, as a Minister and member of Cabinet, Joyce is prohibited from crossing the floor, or if he does so, is required to resign as a Minister.

Leader of the Nationals in the Senate

In September 2008, Joyce replaced Nigel Scullion as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, and stated that his party in the upper house would no longer necessarily vote with their Liberal counterparts in the upper house, which opened up another possible avenue for the Labor government to pass legislation.^[4][21][22] He was able to gain the majority support of the five Nationals (including one CLP) Senators through Fiona Nash and John Williams. The takeover was not expected nor revealed to the party until after it took place.^[23] Joyce remained leader of his party despite the Queensland divisions of the Liberal and National parties merging into the Liberal National Party of Queensland in July, 2008.

In February 2010 Joyce declared that Australia was "going to hock to our eyeballs to people overseas" and was "getting to a point where we can't repay it". This led to a response from the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, that he had "yet to meet a finance minister [sic] who has ever mused any possibility about debt default of his own country" and that there were "few things less likely than Australia defaulting on its sovereign debt".^[24] Joyce was re-elected in the 2010 election on a joint LNP ticket with Senators Brandis and Mason, but he got more below the line votes than above the line votes. He was appointed the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water and retained his role as leader of the Nationals in the Senate.^[25]

House of Representatives (2013–present)

On 13 April 2013, Joyce won the Nationals preselection for the House of Representatives seat of New England in New South Wales, for the September 2013 election. The seat was then held by independent politician Tony Windsor, who held the seat on a margin of 21.52%, and who subsequently announced his retirement.^[26] Independent state parliamentarian Richard Torbay had been preselected as National candidate in August 2012, but was pushed out due to concerns about his ownership of several Centrelink buildings.^[27] Joyce resigned his Senate place on 8 August 2013. On 25 May 2013, Barry O'Sullivan was selected to replace him in the Senate.^[28]

Joyce won the seat of New England with a margin of 21 points. He is also the first person to win back both a Senate seat and a House of Representatives seat previously lost by the Coalition. Following the election, Joyce was elected deputy leader of the Nationals. Joyce was sworn in as the Minister for Agriculture on 18 September 2013, expanded to include Water Resources on 21 September 2015, in the First Turnbull Ministry.^[29]

In 2015 Joyce claimed more attention after warning actor Johnny Depp that if he failed to remove his dogs from Australia, imported illegally, they would be euthanized.^[30]

Joyce faced a stiff challenge from Windsor at the 2016 election. Seat-level polling in the seat of New England found Joyce and Windsor neck and neck.^[31][32][33] On election day, however, Joyce won handily, with 58 percent of the two-party vote. He actually won a majority on the primary vote, enough to retain the seat without the need for preferences.

Leader of the National Party

On 11 February 2016, Joyce was elected unopposed as Leader of the National Party, with Fiona Nash as his deputy, and was sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia on February 18, 2016.^[34]

Social issues

Joyce took offence at a pamphlet handed out by Family First candidate Danny Nalliah, which identified bottle shops, brothels, masonic lodges, mosques, and Hindu and Buddhist temples as "strongholds of Satan", and said that he did not want the preferences of such a party. Joyce criticised the party, calling them "the lunatic Right", and saying that "these are not the sort of people you do preference deals with".^[35]

Joyce has spoken out in opposition to same-sex marriage, attending several rallies on the matter in Canberra.^[36][37] In 2011, he lobbied against a bill proposed by senator Sarah Hanson-Young that would allow for same-sex couples to marry.

In recent years Joyce has changed his views in relation to medical cannabis, and in 2014 he publicly supported calls for the introduction of a medicinal cannabis trial following a high profile campaign led by a young man in his own constituency, Dan Haslam, who was at the time suffering from an aggressive form of terminal cancer. Joyce said following his meeting with Mr Haslam:

"You’re always moved by someone who has cancer and they are looking for whatever opportunity may exist to deal with it. I am against cannabis for recreational use, but just as people grow opium for therapeutic use in palliative care and pain control, if there is a capacity for the active constituents in cannabis to be prescribed to assist with conditions such as terminal cancer, this should be considered. If it is under strict controls and prescribed by a doctor it should be considered."^[38]

In September, 2015, Joyce was the first senior minister to call for the Australian Government to accept more Syrian refugees in response to the humanitarian crisis engulfing Turkey and Europe.^[39] However, his call to prioritise Christian refugees above those from other faiths drew criticism from some human rights observers.^[40]

Economic issues

On the economy, Joyce has often earned the ire of his economic rationalist parliamentary colleagues in the Liberal Party of Australia. Though not popular among the Coalition, Joyce has taken up a number of causes often labelled as populist, such as his support for the retention of a single-desk wheat export marketing system for Australian grain growers, drought assistance for primary producers, and amendments to the Trade Practices Act 1974 and media reform regulations that aim to strengthen the ability of small business to compete with multi-national corporations. When questioned on his views, he stated "Maybe I'm an agrarian socialist, I don't know, is there a problem with being an agrarian socialist?".^[41]

On 17 March 2009, Joyce launched a privately funded advertisement campaign to keep Rio Tinto local, attacking a bid by the Chinese government-owned resources company Chinalco, a bid which has also been heavily criticised by Legal & General in the United Kingdom.^[42]

Joyce also stopped the sale of Qantas to Allco Finance Group in 2006; Allco Finance Group later collapsed.

Joyce is also known to oppose the sale of large Australian agricultural assets to foreign investors. In 2012, as the Opposition spokesman for Water, he was vocal in his opposition to the sale of Cubbie Station to a consortium led by a Chinese State Owned Enterprise.^[43] The then Treasurer, Wayne Swan, ultimately approved the sale. In 2013, as Agriculture Minister, Joyce as well as his National Party colleagues, strongly opposed the proposed sale of Australia's largest bulk grain handler GrainCorp to the American company Archer Daniels Midland. The then Liberal Treasurer, Joe Hockey, rejected the sale based on the hugely discretionary "National Interest" grounds which a Treasurer can use to block such transactions. Despite the reasons Hockey used to justify his decision, it was widely reported that the National Party demanded this outcome, with the Labor Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen accusing the junior Coalition partner of "bullying" the Treasurer into arriving at this decision.^[44]

In 2015, Joyce voiced opposition to the sale of another large Australian asset to foreign buyers, this time S Kidman & Co. which owned the largest combined landholdings in Australia, including the iconic Kidman Station. Most of the known interest came from Chinese companies therefore Joyce was accused of xenophobia, claims which he rejected. In November 2015, the Treasurer, Scott Morrison decided that the sale of S Kidman & Co to any foreign investor would not be approved based on national security grounds, due to part of the company being in the vicinity of the Woomera Prohibited Area, among other reasons.^[45] The Labor Shadow Agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon slammed the Government's decision as "political" and accused it of running a "discriminatory foreign investment regime".^[46]

References

External links

Wikinews has related news: Key Australian senator Barnaby Joyce crosses floor for first time

• "Senator Barnaby Joyce". Parliament of Australia. ; webpage includes transcript of maiden speech; and all other parliamentary speeches.

(Rudd ←)   Abbott Ministry (2013–2015)   (→ Turnbull)
Prime Minister: Tony Abbott
Cabinet	Eric Abetz Kevin Andrews Bruce Billson Julie Bishop George Brandis Mathias Cormann Peter Dutton Joe Hockey Greg Hunt Barnaby Joyce Sussan Ley Ian Macfarlane Scott Morrison Christopher Pyne Andrew Robb Nigel Scullion Warren Truss Malcolm Turnbull
Outer Ministry	Simon Birmingham Jamie Briggs Michaelia Cash Mitch Fifield Josh Frydenberg Luke Hartsuyker Michael Keenan Fiona Nash Marise Payne Stuart Robert Michael Ronaldson
Parliamentary Secretaries	Karen Andrews Bob Baldwin Darren Chester Steven Ciobo Richard Colbeck Concetta Fierravanti-Wells Paul Fletcher Michael McCormack Kelly O'Dwyer Christian Porter Scott Ryan Alan Tudge
Dismissed/resigned	David Johnston Arthur Sinodinos Brett Mason

(Abbott ←)   First Turnbull Ministry (2015–16)   (→ Turnbull)
Prime Minister: Malcolm Turnbull
Cabinet	Simon Birmingham Julie Bishop George Brandis Michaelia Cash Darren Chester Steven Ciobo Mathias Cormann Peter Dutton Mitch Fifield Josh Frydenberg Greg Hunt Barnaby Joyce Sussan Ley Scott Morrison Fiona Nash Kelly O'Dwyer Marise Payne Christian Porter Christopher Pyne Arthur Sinodinos Nigel Scullion
Outer Ministry	Matthew Canavan Richard Colbeck Concetta Fierravanti-Wells Paul Fletcher Michael Keenan Scott Ryan Dan Tehan Alan Tudge
Assistant Ministers	Karen Andrews Alex Hawke Peter Hendy Craig Laundy Michael McCormack James McGrath Keith Pitt Jane Prentice Wyatt Roy Anne Ruston Angus Taylor Ken Wyatt
Dismissed/resigned	Jamie Briggs Mal Brough Luke Hartsuyker Andrew Robb Stuart Robert Warren Truss

(Turnbull ←)   Second Turnbull Ministry (2016–)
Prime Minister: Malcolm Turnbull
Cabinet	Simon Birmingham Julie Bishop George Brandis Matthew Canavan Michaelia Cash Darren Chester Steven Ciobo Mathias Cormann Peter Dutton Mitch Fifield Josh Frydenberg Greg Hunt Barnaby Joyce Sussan Ley Scott Morrison Fiona Nash Kelly O'Dwyer Marise Payne Christian Porter Christopher Pyne Arthur Sinodinos Nigel Scullion
Outer Ministry	Concetta Fierravanti-Wells Paul Fletcher Michael Keenan Michael McCormack Scott Ryan Dan Tehan Alan Tudge
Assistant Ministers	Karen Andrews David Gillespie Luke Hartsuyker Alex Hawke Craig Laundy James McGrath Keith Pitt Jane Prentice Anne Ruston Zed Seselja Angus Taylor Ken Wyatt