Barnaby Joyce has always had a reputation for speaking his mind.
Early in his career, John Howard’s office hatched a cunning plan to silence him. They put him on the Territories Committee and sent him to Antarctica on a study trip, thinking that might buy them some peace and quiet.
It didn’t. When Barnaby returned, he promptly called a press conference and declared that we should drill for oil and gas in our Antarctic territories.
That’s the Barnaby people know and love – unfiltered, fearless and impossible to muzzle.
Which is why it was sad this week to see Barnaby finally gagged.
This week he hung up on The Australian rather than say whether he supported her comments. What’s happened to Barnaby?
The answer is simple: He now works for a boss.
In One Nation, Pauline Hanson is the boss – and what she says goes.
We know what Barnaby really thinks about Pauline because he has said it before – when he was free to do so.
A decade ago, when Pauline proposed banning Muslim immigration, Barnaby pushed back, saying that “every group has their ratbags, even Catholics. We had, in the past, the IRA, but if someone says every Catholic is a member of the IRA, I’d say no”.
“They have nothing to do with the religion that I practise. Islam at the moment also has a lunatic fringe.”
That was Barnaby speaking plainly and sensibly. It is disappointing that One Nation has now locked that Barnaby away.
We all make mistakes. But if Pauline Hanson wants to be taken seriously as a leader – or as a potential prime minister, as she has suggested in recent weeks – she should apologise to the 800,000 Australian Muslims she has unfairly generalised about.
Another leader who struggles to admit mistakes is the prime minister. This week, former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe criticised the government’s spending trajectory and its failure to lift economic growth.
Rather than engage respectfully with one of Australia’s most experienced economic figures, the prime minister dismissed him as an “ex” trying to “get their name in the paper”.
Under Anthony Albanese, Australia is grappling with the highest inflation and interest rates in the developed world.
Instead of dismissing critics, perhaps it would be best if the PM at least considered whether he had made some mistakes.
In contrast, the new Liberal leader, Angus Taylor, has openly acknowledged he has made mistakes. Like all of us, Angus is not perfect.
Leadership requires honesty.
It requires the humility to admit errors and the courage to change direction. Angus has recognised that we must break with the past to give Australians a genuine break in the future.
