Barnaby Joyce airs controversial views on Australia Day

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has let rip at Australia Day naysayers, telling them to harden up and get a grip.

In an interview with radio station 2GB, Mr Joyce said calls to change the date of the day were “political correctness gone mad”.

“I just get sick of these people who every time, every time there’s something on, they want to make you feel guilty about it,” Mr Joyce said this morning from his home in Tamworth.

“They want to tell you you’re evil — they don’t like Christmas, they don’t like Australia Day, they’re just miserable gutted people who I wish would crawl under a rock and hide for a bit.”

There has been a renewed effort this year to change the date because of the offence it causes to many Indigenous Australians.

Many view the day as a sad moment in history when their culture and way of life was torn apart by the landing.

To them, and many other Australians, it seems wrong to celebrate such a traumatising occasion.

However, Mr Joyce is having none of it, telling the ‘bleeding hearts’ to get over it.

“Don’t start your weeping and gnashing your teeth around me about the terrible evil that we’ve done, providing a nation where we’re democratic, where there’s free education, where there’s basically free health, where we’re well defended, where we basically look after the poor to the best of our ability, that has created a culture where we don’t see some of the craziness you see in some of the other parts of the world,” he said.

“If that’s not important to you and you’ve got your nose bent out of joint because you think it should be something else, well that’s fine, find another day and go celebrate it by yourself.

“This is Australia Day — people have Barbecues, probably play a bit of cricket, here they’ll be walking up and down listening to a bit of country music.

“It’s about celebration.”

One idea that is quickly gaining popularity is to change Australia Day to May 8 because of the way it rolls of the tongue with the Aussie drawl: “May 8… Maayyyy 8…. Mate!”

Do you think we should change the date to make it more inclusive for all? Or should we keep the date we’ve got?