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Nationals leader and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, will resign on Monday.
It comes after details of Joyce’s relationship with a former staffer emerged just over a fortnight ago and sparked a growing crisis in the government.
Joyce will stay on as the member for New England and go to the backbench.
Business Insider’s Simon Thomsen has more on his resignation here.
We’ve compiled some quotes from Joyce’s time in politics that reveal the inner workings of the soon to be former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
On the way Muslim women dress
Let me put my cards on the table. Women can wear what they like to the beach so long as they’re wearing something. I enjoy having a beer with my mates at Sydney’s Watto Bay pub where we can talk about God’s beautiful creations as they walk by.
On actor Johnny Depp bringing his dogs illegally into Australia
It doesn’t matter if Johnny Depp has been awarded sexiest man alive twice, it’s time Boo and Pistol bugger off home… Mr Depp has to either take his dogs back to California or we’re going to have to euthanize them, he’s now got about 50 hours left to remove the dogs.
On the first 12 months of Tony Abbott’s government
A dog fight in a fog; where it’s loud, noisy and furious and the targets are shadowy.
On a much-anticipated drought package for farmers
I’ve always said before the year’s out, and it’s going to happen before the year’s out – and if it doesn’t you can have another press conference and drag me backwards and forth through the prickles and kick the crap out of me.
On doing politics
I like the political battle. I think everybody in their life calibrates themselves by the battle, you know. You were talking about the football before, you calibrate yourself by the big games. I suppose if you’re a boxer you calibrate yourself by the big fights. If you’re a reporter you calibrate yourself by the big interviews which means that you’ve probably gone right up in people’s estimation today.
On the law and sharia law
Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I quite like the idea that we are all equal before the law.
On his first election beside Malcolm Turnbull as PM
I think we’ve got to all get together as one, we’ve got to go to the election unified there will be an election this year.
On being in Opposition
Because we represent the alternative government in Australia, that does not mean that we are omnipotent and that our views permeate to become the views of everyone else. We have to provide an outcome that represents the aspirations of the Australian people.
On the ALP during Question Time
We hear lots of rumours around here but we never get any questions about policy. No questions about policy. After 206 days [as agricultural minister] they have finally realised that there is an agricultural portfolio but they just can’t work out how to ask a question about it.
On racism and the reaction of AFL champion Adam Goodes to being called an “ape”
I think we’ve got to be really cautious about trying to completely sanitise everything because it doesn’t fix the problem. It just turns the problem into code. The problem remains there and it’s just like the way politicians talk. It’s still there but they start talking in code and if you want to test that theory you can ask people, you know, what their views are on a certain subject, like this program, and you will get the coded answer, everybody’s capable of it, and then take them down the pub, give them a couple of beers and ask them exactly the same question again, different answer. So I think that the way ‑ what’s great about Australia is we’re open and transparent and robust and I think we’ve got to stay open and transparent and robust.
On being a dual citizen in breach of the Constitution
Unfortunately ignorance is not an excuse, you’re in strife and as I said, there’s nothing malicious about it, being sneaky, but they were outside what Section 44 explicitly says. The reason it says that, is that you can only have one master, Australia. If you’re going to serve in the Australian parliament, Australia is your master.
His definition of home insulation
That’s the fluffy stuff that sits in the ceiling for rats and mice to urinate on.
On abortion
Abortion is the slavery debate of our time. It is brokered by good people on both sides. Long after the annals of time have forgotten that there ever was a National Party, a Liberal Party or a Labor Party, the immutable argument of the worth of human life will prevail and the acknowledgment of those who stood to defend it. My debate is with the action, not with the qualities or attributes of the person. There are no winners on abortion; all are left scarred and hurt, and there has to be a better way.
On the late Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen
My mentor and whom I never met.
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