He’s all talk till his red in the face.
Beetroot Barney was Gnats munster appointed to protect and champion Australia’s Agriculture from September 2013 to September 2015. He then had his portfolio diluted by Water Resources up until December 2017, before Australia’s High Court ruled he was a New Zealand citizen and so in breach of The Constitution.
All screech, and can peck you to death.
Raw Prawn Barney
As Agriculture Minister, Barney failed Australia in biosecurity, overseeing the major outbreak of highly contagious Asian prawn white spot disease, which was first detected in the Logan River south of Brisbane in October 2016. By March 2017 the white spot virus had infected wild prawns in Moreton Bay off Brisbane.
Barney just stood back and let the Coles and Woolies grocery cartel import cheap uncooked Asian prawns from dodgy Hong Kong based importer Sino Agro Food.
Coles and Woolies bypassing Aussie prawn farmers then the imported Asian white spot outbreak ruined the local industry. The outbreak our cost prawn farmers in Queensland more than $43 million in lost revenue and de-stocking costs. Canberra spent $42 million of taxpayers money to reimburse the losses and another $30 million in concessional loans. The Queensland government spent $26 million of taxpayers money on damage control. So what, a total of $140 million because of greedy Coles and Woolies, and Aldi chose cheap Third World imports?
Newly appointed Inspector General of Biosecurity, Helen Scott-Orr, reported to Barney a litany of failings in biosecurity that had led to the outbreak of white spot syndrome virus. Namely, systematic rorting of import conditions, government naivety in trusting importers to inspect and test prawns for disease, slack quarantine inspections, no seals on prawn containers enabling prawn swapping by Sino Agro Food to criminally hide diseased prawns from Australian authorities, and evidence of ethnic fishermen using the prawns as bait in the Logan River upstream from Aussie prawn farms.
Dr Scott-Orr concluded:
“I found several deficiencies in the management of the biosecurity risk of uncooked prawn imports, with broader implications for Australia’s biosecurity risk management more generally. I found that specific policy elements and their implementation had sowed the seeds of failure many years before, while progressive and cumulative acts, omissions and systemic factors at many levels exacerbated the risks over time.”
Dr Scott-Orr pointed to the Liberal-Nationals budget decision to reduce front line quarantine inspection staff by 25% in the last five years – identified as “a critical weakness in confronting the challenges of increased imports of goods.”
At the time, Barney was more personally concerned with eyeing off Vikki Campion in his office for sexual favours.
Australia’s Worst Agriculture Minister Ever
Liberal Lapdogs complicit in flogging off Australian Agriculture
As a Liberal lapdog, Gnat Barney has stood by while millions in Australia’s agricultural wealth have been flogged off to Chinese state-controlled enterprises – recently of note Cubby Station, Van Diemen’s Land Company and a third of S. Kidman & Co. Chinese interests now own almost 14.5 million hectares of Australia – more than twice the size of Tasmania.
Happily flogging off Australia wealth to Chinese
Liberal Lapdogs complicit in cutting biosecurity funding
In 2015, Australia’s leading science organisation the CSIRO with the Plant Biosecurity Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) warned Canberra of significant, relatively sudden and potentially high impact events that are likely to threaten Australia’s biosecurity – that is out agricultural competitive advantage. These are termed ‘megashocks’ and the CSIRO and CRC identified twelve priorities Australia could likely face over the next two to three decades.
- Nationwide incursion of a new race of an exotic wheat stem rust
- Nationwide loss of pollination services from feral European honey bees due to a multi-state varroa mite incursion
- Nationwide incursion of a new exotic fruit fly
- Nationwide outbreak of a variant strain of foot and mouth disease
- Bluetongue outbreak across Australia’s major sheep producing regions
- Highly virulent rust spreads across multiple ecosystems
- Government ‘walks away’ from environmental biosecurity (more Barney walkabouts)
- Successful establishment of black-striped mussel
- Outbreak of infectious salmon anaemia
- Nationwide zoonotic disease epidemic
- Bioterrorist attack
- A rapid spike in antimicrobial resistance.
What did Barney do, but sat back like a good lapdog gNat while the Liberals slashed the CSIRO’s budget in 2014 by $100, losing 900 position, followed by another budget cut of $115 million in 2016 with a further 300 staff sent packing.
While Barney was Ag munster 2013-2017…
- In February 2017 exotic pest tomato potato psyllid was discovered for the first time in Australia in a suburban garden in Perth and in a commercial capsicum crop north of the city. It is capable of carrying the zebra chip disease in potatoes which cost New Zealand’s potato industry $45 million when it arrived there in 2008.
- Foreign chestnut blight was first detected near Eurobin in the Ovens Valley in Victoria’s north-east in September 2010 which could wipe out Victoria’s chestnut industry, worth $8 million annually. Over 5000 Chestnut trees were removed, but it was again detected in 2014.
- Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus was detected on watermelon farms in Katherine and Darwin in the Northern Territory in September 2014.
- Far North Queensland’s $400 million banana industry was devastated after the discovery of Panama Tropical Race 4 disease on a property at Tully in 2015.
- Fire ants entered Australia through a port in Brisbane in 2001 and arrived again in 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
- The Asian honeybee Java strain, which can carry the parasitic varroa mite, was discovered in Cairns in 2007. It threatens Australia’s pollination and honey industry worth more than $1 billion a year. It was again detected in Townsville in 2016.
- Russian wheat aphid was first discovered in South Australia in May 2016.
- Tasmanian farmers of Pacific oysters are slowly rebuilding after an outbreak of Pacific oyster mortality syndrome disease destroyed approximately $50 million worth of stock.
- And Barney also oversaw South Australia’s largest Queensland Fruit Fly outbreak in 2015 which cost $1.5 million to eradicate.
Barney was Ag munster when the Queensland fruit fly was in plague proportions across Victoria in 2015 destroying fruit across the Sunraysia area. Da fly was endemic in NSW and yet Barney did nothing to control it. Barney was missing in action, and at the time myopic about having a PR war with Walt Disney’s pirate Jack Sparrow and his smuggled Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo.
What an anti-Australian maggot more driven by his adulterous affair!
Now due to Barney’s sexual fantasy distractions, Tasmania’s horticulture is buggered by fruit fly infestation let in from Victoria. Fruit flies lay eggs in fruit and vegetables, rendering produce inedible and devastating crops.
A Tasmania-wide alert has been issued after a nectarine certified as being “fruit fly-free” was found infested with larvae in Devonport, sparking a recall of that supplier’s produce from the shelves of retail outlets across the state. In a statement, Biosecurity Tasmania said the nectarine from an outsourced fruit fly treatment facility in Victoria run by ethnics who couldn’t give a toss.
Lapdog gNat: “The position of Cabinet is the position of the collective”
– Ag Munster Barnaby Joyce at NSW Nationals Conference in Cessnock in June 2015
Fruit fly is typically spread by travellers (ignorant foreigners) carrying infested fruit into or between horticultural regions.
We’re talking Tasmania’s apples, apricots, blackberries, capsicums, cherries, figs, lemons, loganberries, mulberries, nashies, nectarines, passionfruit, peaches, pears, plums, quinces, raspberries, strawberries and tomatoes.
Joycies tomatoes 50% off. Bargain!