INDEPENDENT candidate for New England Tony Windsor has weighed in to criticism surrounding comments made by Barnaby Joyce drawing a link between the ban on live exports and an increase in asylum seekers arriving on boats in Australia.
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The member for New England and Deputy Prime Minister made the comments during a political debate in Goulburn on Thursday night, in which Mr Joyce suggested there was a link between the temporary ban on live exports and an influx of asylum seekers in 2011.
"Might I remind you that when we closed down the live animal export industry, it was around about the same time that we started seeing a lot of people arriving in boats in Australia," Mr Joyce stated.
Yesterday morning, Mr Windsor called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to remove Mr Joyce from making comment on international affairs, amid concerns that the Indonesian government could retaliate by decreasing current live export quotas. He said Mr Joyce's comments were not in line with the motion put forward by The Nationals' John Cobb who said the party had agreed with the ban of live exports at the time.
"This is an example of short term, opportunistic politics, trying to relate three separate issues from Indonesia, the diplomatic areas there and the live export ban which was temporary for a month along with the minority parliament, "Mr Windsor said.
Might I remind you that when we closed down the live animal export industry, it was around about the same time that we started seeing a lot of people arriving in boats in Australia.
- Barnaby Joyce
"What Mr Joyce did last night was prove that he is unfit to be in a leader's debate, he's unfit to be a leader and he has insulted Indonesia, our nearest neighbour.
“(There are) 220 million people and we need those people for the future, they are going to be very important, not only in terms of the live cattle trade but in terms of trade in total.” he said.
"To insult them again and to suggest that they retaliated to Minister Ludwig's suspension of the live export trade at that particular time is an absolute insult and part of an opportunistic process that this man goes through."
Mr Windsor said he had faith that Prime Minister Turnbull could resolve the issue diplomatically but was concerned that the damage had already been done.
"What Mr Joyce said is an insult to Indonesia, to allege they would put people on the water relation to something an Australian minister put in place.
"Hopefully Prime Minister Turnbull can clean up the mess. If Indonesia is offended by this they may well retaliate, not by boats but it will be in a reduction in the live export quotas to send a message to Australian that they won't be trivialised.
