Barnaby lashes out: Joyce launches into furious on-air rant over bushfires

Emotions are running high across the country this week, as people continue to battle the ferocious bushfires that are currently burning across New South Wales and Queensland and await to hear if their homes and livelihood will make it out unscathed.

That was the difficult situation that Barnaby Joyce found himself in on Tuesday as he helped his parents to protect their home in the New England area of NSW, revealing live on air during an interview on 2GB that spot fires had started to blaze close to the property.

“I’m at my parents’ place,” he told Karl Stefanovic. “I’ve got to try and work out how I rig up some firefighting equipment around their house and try and save their house. We’ve got spot fires round it. I don’t know how this works, we’ll just do our best job.”

He added: “It’s the same for a lot of people. I don’t expect any special sympathy. This is a nightmare for so many people. I am looking at it right now. I can see the fire and it’s scary as all s***.”

However the interview, which started off calm, took a turn when Stefanovic asked him about the controversial issue of “red tape around land-clearing an back burning”, triggering a fiery response from the former deputy prime minister.

“We’ve got to get on top of this s**t,” the ex-Nationals leader raged. “We’ve got to get on top of this crap where there’s all this bureaucracy that stands in the way of people keeping their place safe. We’re just absolutely sick of people who have nothing to do with our bloody life telling us what to do!”

Karl then asked: “You’ve had enough?” To which he replied: “Everybody has mate, this is our life! There are people being killed, there are people hurt. This is not pretend for us! This is our life, we actually live this s**t.”

As brave firefighters continue to tackle blazes across NSW and Queensland, with the Sunshine State receiving the brunt of the extreme conditions on Wednesday, following a day of catastrophic conditions in New South Wales on Tuesday.

Following some finger pointing between rival political parties, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke out yesterday. He told the Daily Telegraph: “There have been a lot of provocative comments made over the last few days from all sides of the debate and I find it very unhelpful. The last thing that people in an urgent crisis need at the moment is hearing politicians shout at each other.”

His comments came after members of the Greens lashed out at the government for their lack of action when it comes to climate change, while Labor and the Nationals retaliated and blamed the Greens’ policies around limiting back burning for the scale of the blazes.

Richard Di Natale took aim at the Coalition on Monday, claiming their inaction on climate change was to blame for the extent of the bushfires, saying: “Every politician, lobbyist, pundit and journalist who has fought to block serious action on climate change bears responsibility for the increasing risk from a heating planet that is producing these deadly bushfires.”

Senior Nationals and members of the ALP then hit back, slamming the Greens for their opposition to controlled burning. Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said it was ­“absolutely the wrong time to be looking for political opportunity”, while NSW Deputy Premier told The Australian: “We need to do more hazard ­reduction, (burning) in national parks to manage the fuel load. Everyone knows that this is a real issue and I’ve got the guts to say it.”

Following that, a heartbroken volunteer rural firefighter has spoken out, slamming ‘environmental authorities’ who he says he holds “directly responsible” for the scale of the devastation, with hundreds of homes lost so far and three people confirmed dead as a result of the fires.