Tony Abbott says he is getting “double the marketing advantage” by campaigning for the agriculture white paper without his agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, who will promote the document in a different location.
The prime minister said on Monday that Joyce would “absolutely” retain his position as agriculture minister despite his outspoken criticism of Greg Hunt’s decision as environment minister to approve the Shenhua Watermark coalmine in the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales.
Abbott was visiting a farm in Tirrannaville in New South Wales to promote the government’s blueprint for the agricultural sector, released just over a week ago. The prime minister was joined on Monday by the local Liberal MP for Hume, Angus Taylor, but not the agriculture minister, who savaged the coalmine’s approval last week as evidence that “the world has gone mad”.
At a media conference, Abbott credited Joyce with bringing “enormous passion and commitment to the task” of developing the agricultural competitiveness white paper, but the prime minister faced questions about why the minister was absent from the event.
“Barnaby is doing his job,” the prime minister said. “He’s doing his job extremely well and his job is going out to market the agriculture white paper where he is, just as it’s my job to market the agriculture white paper where I am. We are both doing our job to the best of our ability and as far as I’m concerned that means we get double the marketing advantage on a day like today.”
Abbott backed Joyce’s cabinet position, saying the agriculture minister was “passionate, committed, knowledgeable and this white paper is a tribute to his good work”.
Joyce spoke to local reporters at a media conference in his electorate of New England on Monday morning. The Watermark coalmine, to be operated by Chinese firm Shenhua, would be in Joyce’s local electorate of New England, but he has made clear that he objected to the proposal in his capacity as agriculture minister.
The Watermark project manager, Paul Jackson, accused Joyce of “sabre-rattling” and being “a loony”.
“A big part of this is about us being Chinese and state-owned, and him being naive and xenophobic and not liking Chinese state-owned enterprises buying farmland or developing resources in Australia,” Jackson told the Australian newspaper on Monday.
“The wider benefit of this mine is that you can engender a long-term relationship with China and they will want to take your agricultural goods from the other one million hectares of the Liverpool Plains.”
Joyce reaffirmed on Monday that he would not resign from the cabinet and he said he found Jackson’s comments to be “desperately disappointing”.
“I don’t see myself as a xenophobic loony, as he so politely points out, but what I do think that shows is the rather abrupt nature of Mr Jackson,” Joyce said.
Joyce questioned the former New South Wales Labor government’s decision to grant an exploration licence to the mine proponents and said he had recently written to the Liberal premier, Mike Baird, urging him to prevent the project from going ahead.
Hunt also pointed to “the New South Wales Labor decision to open up the land” as he attempted to defend the federal environmental approval.
However, the former NSW Labor premier Kristina Keneally said on Twitter that the Shenhua mine exploration licence expired in 2012 and was renewed by NSW Liberal government. She described this as “an inconvenient fact left out by [Steven] Ciobo & Hunt today”.
Hunt defended his decision – saying he had “put in place the toughest conditions in history” – but also backed Joyce’s right to voice his “longstanding view”.
“He’s got a longstanding commitment that predates being a minister. It wouldn’t be reasonable to get him to suddenly pretend that he doesn’t have his views,” Hunt told ABC Radio National on Monday.
“He’s a really good man. He’s an honest and decent man and I want to stand up for him.”
Hunt told reporters he had spoken to Joyce twice in the past week and they had “an incredibly positive civil relationship”.
Hunt insisted, however, that the mine was “not on prime agricultural land”.
Joyce, the deputy Nationals leader, said in a Facebook post last Wednesday that he had never supported the Shenhua mine because “it is ridiculous that you would have a major mine in the midst of Australia’s best agricultural land”.
“I think the world has gone mad when apparently you cannot build a house at Moore Creek because of White Box grassy woodlands but you can build a super mine in the middle of the Breeza Plains,” he wrote.
Labor’s agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, said the government was divided on the question of whether the mine was on prime agricultural land.
“The warring ministers are causing more confusion, fear and uncertainty in the communities of the Liverpool Plains,” Fitzgibbon said.
“Greg Hunt must quickly move to clarify the situation and in doing so, prove his agriculture minister wrong. He must do so by releasing the documentation and scientific evidence he has relied on in making his decision.”
The Victorian Liberal party president, Michael Kroger, said Joyce’s public comments were “extremely unusual” for a cabinet minister.
“Some people say it’s just Barnaby being Barnaby,” Kroger told Sky News on Monday. “Is it in accordance with the Westminster principles? No.”
Kroger said there were some cases of “authorised or allowable” cases where ministers from time to time could disagree with government policy. He cited the example of Western Australian ministers who had strong views about distribution of goods and services tax revenue.
The trade minister, Andrew Robb, played down the government divisions on Sunday, saying Joyce felt “enormously strongly” about the issue and the prime minister’s role was to manage a cabinet full of “type A” personalities.
