Barnaby Joyce

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Barnaby Joyce
Senator for Queensland
In office
July 1, 2005 – June 30, 2011
Born 17 April 1967
Tamworth, New South Wales
Political party National Party of Australia
Religion Roman Catholic

Barnaby Thomas Gerald Joyce (born 17 April 1967), Australian politician, has been a member of the Australian Senate representing the state of Queensland since July 2005. He is a member of the National Party of Australia. Joyce was born in Tamworth, New South Wales, and was brought up in Danglemah. One of six children from a sheep-and-cattle farming family, he attended St Ignatius' College, Riverview, in Sydney. His father, James Joyce, was a New Zealander who moved to Australia to study veterinary science at Sydney University where he met Barnaby's mother, Marie, and they made their living as farmers.

Joyce graduated with a commerce degree from the University of New England in Armidale, and served in the Australian Army Reserve from 1994 to 1999. At university Joyce met his future wife, Natalie, who is part Lebanese. His parents were opposed to the marriage and no one from his family attended the 1993 wedding. After graduating, Joyce moved around northern New South Wales and Queensland, and at one point worked as a bouncer. Joyce worked in the Accounting Profession before entering Parliament and is a FCPA (Fellow of CPA Australia). The Joyces have four daughters and now live in St George in western Queensland, where Joyce had an accounting business.

A Roman Catholic, Joyce served as President (1998-2004) of the St George branch of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. He holds conservative views on most moral and social issues. He took offence at a pamphlet put out by Family First candidate Danny Nalliah, which identified 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".[1] Nonetheless he gained office with preference flows from Family First Party.

[edit] Senator

Joyce was elected to the Senate in the parliamentary election held on 9 October 2004. His term will run until June 2011 unless there is a double dissolution election in the meantime. Joyce, regained the seat which the Nationals lost to the One Nation Party in 1998, defeating the One Nation Senator Len Harris. The Liberals won three seats in Queensland, making this 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.

Although Joyce is a member of the ruling Coalition, he 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. In particular, he expressed misgivings about the government's proposed sale of Telstra, the partially state-owned telecommunications company, and said that he might vote against the sale unless he and the rest of the party were satisfied that its service in rural areas was adequate and that privatization would not adversely affect it.

Joyce's maiden speech to the Senate on August 16, 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 $3 billion to improve telecommunications services in regional and rural areas. On the basis of this, the National Party, including Joyce, agreed to support the sale of Telstra. This led the Labor Party to label Joyce "Backdown Barney" and "Barnaby Rubble" in an acrimonious parliamentary debate. Joyce voted with the Government in the Senate on 14 September 2005, to sell the Government's remaining share of Telstra.

Senator Joyce crossed the floor to vote with the ALP 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.

In October 2006 he again crossed the floor, unsuccessfully moving amendments to the government's cross media ownership laws.[2]

In May 2006 Joyce promoted mining of Antarctica (mining is banned under the Antarctic Treaty). Joyce justified his proposal by saying:

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'."

The Federal Government has warned Joyce that Australia could lose one or two major oil companies should he succeed in plans to block the deregulation of the oil industry.[3]

On 9 October 2006, Joyce appeared on the ABC television comedy show The Glass House.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Qld Nationals split over Family First deal published in The Australian, Greg Roberts, October 08, 2004
  2. ^ Media laws pass the Senate, PM, Oct 12 2006
  3. ^ Mark Metherell. "Senator accused of endangering oil giants", Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-05-16.

[edit] External links

Current members of the Australian Senate
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