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PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has distanced himself from comments made by his deputy and member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, connecting the 2011 live export ban to an influx in asylum seekers on boats.
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Appearing beside Mr Joyce at a press conference in Rockhampton yesterday, Mr Turnbull stepped in when journalists asked the Deputy Prime Minister about his comments made during a televised debate in Goulburn.
Mr Turnbull told the press the federal government did not believe there was any link between the two hot-button issues.
“Let me be quite clear about this: there is no link between the Indonesian government and people smuggling,” Mr Turnbull said.
“I count the Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Jokowi, as a good friend and leader. He and his wife and Lucy and I spent a very, very productive time together in Jakarta last year and I believe our relations between Australia and Indonesia have never been better than they are today.”
When debate host Chris Uhlmann questioned Mr Joyce’s suggestion that Indonesia was responsible for the rise in arrivals, Mr Joyce said it was “absolutely the case we created extreme badwill” with the decision to halt live cattle exports.
Mr Joyce’s remarks quickly made news in Australia and Indonesia.
Former member for New England turned independent candidate Tony Windsor also came out swinging in a local media scrum in Tamworth yesterday.
Former Indonesian minister Marty Natalegawa responded strongly to Mr Joyce’s “patently false” remarks, telling Fairfax Media they represent “at best” an over-analysis of the subject.
Mr Joyce sought to play down his comments yesterday morning and believed his remarks were taken out of context. He said he was pointing to the period under Labor which was a “disaster” for Australia.
“All I was saying is you don’t fix a problem by creating another problem,” Mr Joyce said.
“In government, Labor undermined both our economic and national security. I’m not saying that this caused the Indonesians to start sending people across. I never suggested that. What I did suggest was it made it difficult ... in how we negotiate with Indonesia, and after that point we needed all the reasons in the world to negotiate with them, because 40,000 people made their own arrangements and just arrived here by boat.”
