NEW England MP Barnaby Joyce has called for a national debate on the death penalty, after admitting the amount of support for capital punishment among Australians is "startling".
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Mr Joyce told ABC TV, in the aftermath of the executions of convicted drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, that public opinion on the death penalty "varies".
He said that his personal views against capital punishment "anywhere in the world" are different "in many instances" to the views of many people in society.
"I do get approached by people saying 'Well, that might be your view, Barnaby, that you don't support the death penalty, but it's not our view'," he said.
"And I find that startling at times and I think that the discussion that we're having about others, we should also be carrying out domestically."