The consequences of a government minister threatening to kill a film star's dogs and fining him, in effect, half a million dollars for bringing them in will do more to damage our country than any decision taken since our participation in the WMD war.
It shows we are, or seem, in Patrick White's words:
'... a convocation of rustic clowns'.
It has damaged us as much as the 1925 Monkey Trial damaged Tennessee.
It should be remembered that Barnaby is our deputy prime minister "heir apparent". It should be remembered he is a religious lunatic who hates gay marriage and could not, while shadow minister for finance, distinguish millions from billions. His face grows puce on occasions and his high blood pressure pills may be some part of the cause of his occasional bursts of dementia.
What, one may ask, are the economic consequences of Barmy Barnaby? Half a million of Depp's dollars will not, for certain, be spent here. It is likely that this, his fifth film here, will be his last. It is probable that other film companies – Chinese, Indian, British, German – will think twice, and think very carefully, before filming here. It is probable overseas investment in Queensland will go down by one tenth. It is possible tourism to Queensland – in an age of great storms and floods in that region and planes buffeted by high winds – will come down by twenty percent.
→ http://t.co/TuXq2JMVV9 Barnaby Joyce wants apology from Kyle Sandilands over Johnny Depp s dog #BarnabyJoyce 747 pic.twitter.com/EVPePXMqnG
— Patricia Johnson (@johnspatricc) May 17, 2015
So Barnaby's effect on our economy is as deleterious as Black Saturday; or Ash Wednesday. He is a veritable remorseless malignant tsunami whose legendary ignorance, affirmed world wide, will do as much harm to our image overseas as the Mississippi lynchings did to the Old South in 1955.
What is to be done with this hectic, beetroot-coloured oaf?
A poll in his seat of New England measuring his chances against a resurgent Tony Windsor would be a start. A caucus meeting of National and LNP members and senators that flings him out of the leadership would help. A Jon Stewart special on his hundred worst gaffes would then obliterate him, as a serious figure, from our national history.
These measures should be put in train immediately.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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Pirates of the Caribbean - The Canine Calamity https://t.co/PITPUDhdWN OMG can't stop laughing, satire video with Barnaby Joyce & Johny Depp
— Sonia Surija (@Sonia_Rose1) May 17, 2015
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