Today I met with Barnaby Joyce,
Minister for Agriculture and Water for Australia. (I do so like to name drop).
Prior to the meeting he had variously been described to me as ‘the Boris
Johnson of Australia’ and ‘More right wing than Stalin’, neither of which
inspired confidence. He is the deputy leader of the National Party and is the 7th
most powerful politician in Australia (behind the PM, the deputy PM, the
chancellor, and the Ministers for Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Home
Office). We met in Parliament House in Canberra, which was appropriately
awesome. A bit like the Houses of Parliament in London but without the Gothic
turrets. Think Eucalyptus coloured marble columns and you can’t go much wrong.
Barnaby is definitely a key
character on the Aussie political stage. He recently courted international fame
by being the man who wouldn’t let Johnny Depp bring his pet Yorkshire Terriers
into the country. I successfully resisted the urge to open the meeting with a
who-let-the–dogs-out quip. He is also a fervent opponent to same-sex marriages.
Sam (Smith, my Isle colleague who attended the meeting with me) and I fought
back the impulse to mince into the meeting holding hands.
According to the never-wrong Wikipedia
his is an avowed climate change denier. This was something I was not prepared
to let pass by unchecked. During our 30 minute meeting (kindly arranged by Joe
Rettino of East Gippsland Water) I managed to slip in a whole series of
climate-change-related technology anecdotes, sharing stories about Syrinix
(leak detection), Biobullets (control of invasive crustaceans) and Ostara
(phosphorus recovery). I even managed to slip in a story about Cogent and the
excellent work they are doing with bull semen. Now that’s a topic you can take
to a dinner party….
The most abiding feature of him
when he walked into the room was his colour, best described as angry beetroot.
He was either in a very bad mood or had just come off the running machine. I
suspect it was the former. You can’t blame him. At the end of a long hard day
he probably wasn’t looking forward to a meeting with an unknown Englishman to
talk about water technology and project investment. As our meeting progressed
he became notably less ruddy and I venture to believe that he warmed to the
topic. He still looked like a man you wouldn’t want to mess with. He is 47, a
mere 2 years my senior. However, even in my current haggard, jet-lagged,
sunken-eyed state I still looked a good 10 years his junior. Being an Aussie
politician is clearly a wearing task.
I should cut him some slack. He
is juggling a number of very difficult, complex and competing agendas. I doubt
he will be going home to his wife tonight to proudly say that today he met with
the 61 millionth important person in the UK. The name dropping glory was all
one way.
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