News Breakfast: Senior Liberals have also suggested that maybe the party, the Coalition, needs to adopt even tougher climate action. How do you feel about that?
Barnaby Joyce: That’s a discussion for the Liberal Party, isn’t it?
NB: If you’re part of the Coalition, though, it does affect you.
BJ: At this point in time, even their suggestion, we’re not. Once the election is over, you go back to two separate parties and you negotiate a Coalition.
NB: Is the prospect that you could suggest that there is a split in the Coalition? I know you have been asked this before.
BJ: I prefer there wasn’t. At this point in time, there’s not a Coalition that will be negotiated. It’s one of the big jobs ahead of us. To negotiate the Coalition, negotiate ministries, the guard rails of policy. Negotiate, you know, resources, this is the big task that is imminently before us. And you know, that’s what I’ll be focused on, to make sure the Nationals get the best deal they can.
NB: Do you think the Nationals deserve more, given what you said is a very successful campaign?
BJ: Well, obviously we are a greater proportion, if there was a Coalition, if there’s a Coalition, we’re a greater proportion of that Coalition. So that’s beyond dispute.
NB: So more frontbench positions?
BJ: You’re asking an obvious question. Mathematically, yes.
