Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—As you walk up the hill in this place you are an idealist, and as you walk down the hill you are a realist, and, ultimately, after a time you become a statesman, but that's really up to you. Joel's one of the hardest players on the ball in this chamber. With his interjections he tries to get under your skin. In the corridor during my interviews he would accost me; he would know where I was doing an interview and wait for me at the door, and we would both make an absolute disgrace of ourselves, on media issues most of the time. He was certainly a worthy adversary.

People who have been here for a while know you don't play footy in the change rooms. There's no point to it. You just make a fool of yourself. When we're off the ball, we'd go and have a beer—you don't give away the secrets of your side—and that's a sign of maturity of a person who has such a history and a pedigree from this place. Because of the Fitzgibbon's legacy, Joel was able to come here with a sense of how you treat people with respect. He knows that you don't become completely and utterly tribal. That's not how our nation works; it's inoperable like that. There have to be times when you talk to one another and work things out.

I won't keep the chamber too long, but I'll give you an understanding of how we, on this side, see Joel. Obviously, when a leader steps down, when the member for Maribyrnong stepped aside, we had a discussion about who the next leader may be and what they meant to us. I won't go through and say everybody else; that's not respectful, but when we got to Joel we said, 'What happens if Joel Fitzgibbon becomes the leader?' A number of my colleagues said: 'We'll lose the next election. That's what happens.' We know that he cut through in our electorate. He's one we worry about turning up in our electorate because they like him, and that is a big problem for us. Thankfully, he's retiring! So we've dealt with that issue.

The final thing I would say is how the Australian people see him. As you would know, Joel and I have a slot on a television station early on Monday mornings. There was a time when, for some unknown reason, they thought we were going to another television station, and we were both getting these calls saying, 'Why are you leaving us?' We were going, 'We're not.' They said, 'But we're the highest rating show in morning television.' We said, 'We're not leaving you.' They said: 'And your slot is probably one of the highest rating slots in that section. It's vital that you stay.' We went, 'We're not leaving.' But why was that? Because the Australian people also look to this guy and go: 'I get him. I relate to him.' That's because he's not an automaton; he's not a machine. He doesn't, like so many of us in this chamber, blurt out the lines so that people listening to him go: 'That's not what you believe, mate. You just said anything and I don't believe you. It's not authentic.'

Joel, I hope that we remain good mates. We're both supporters of Newcastle Knights. I look forward to getting down there, I hope, and seeing a few games. We're very hard from Tamworth and very hard for here. On State of Origin we're on different sides of the field, because I'm loyal to the first place where I played senior league, and that was Queensland. All the best, mate. We are going to miss you.

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