SHADOW Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has issued a challenge to debate his Coalition farm rival Barnaby Joyce during the 2016 election campaign.
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But doubt has been cast over the fate of a forum that’s been advertised at Goulburn in late May, featuring the two agricultural sparring partners joining Green’s leader Richard Di Natale.
Yesterday at Yass in southern NSW, Mr Fitzgibbon said he’d spent the last 12 months trying to secure a public debate with Barnaby Joyce but “he has been on the run”.
“I understood that yesterday he finally accepted the proposition in Goulburn,” Mr Fitzgibbon said of an ABC hosted event.
“I’m certainly looking forward to it but I’m wondering whether his commitment is a real one and I won’t believe Barnaby Joyce will turn up in Goulburn until I see it written down and signed by him.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said he didn’t select Goulburn as the venue for debate later this month with that choice made by the ABC.
He said he’d seen marketing for the event which included him and Mr Joyce but was happy to debate the Nationals leader in Goulburn or somewhere else, over the duration of the federal campaign.
“If Barnaby is going to cut and run again then he should say so today before he further embarrasses himself,” he said.
“I have approached a number of organisations hoping that they might host a debate and I’m happy to debate Barnaby Joyce not once but maybe more.”
Asked how he planned to target his rival in any public jousting, Mr Fitzgibbon continued the political brinkmanship.
“The first rule in debating is not to foreshadow your punches but second, none of us her have the time available for me to go through a very long list of deficiencies in Barnaby Joyce’s time as Agriculture Minister,” he said.
A spokesperson for Mr Joyce said all debates and major opportunities for the federal election campaign, leading up to July 2, are yet to be finalised.
A website promoting the ABC forum in Goulburn on May 25 has described it as a “regional leaders debate” but has included Senator Di Natale rather than the Green’s agricultural spokesperson and WA Senator Rachel Siewert on the panel.
Mr Joyce has also been invited to debate his Labor opposite at other forums around the country with a conditional response provided, based on availability due to the election being called.
Early last year, Mr Joyce accepted a challenge from Mr Fitzgibbon to attend a public debate on foreign direct investment following a lively exchange on Twitter over foreign investment rules.
Mr Fitzgibbon said the debate would allow the National Party deputy leader “to explain why you have different rules” and pledged he would hold the event, “any time, any place”.
Mr Joyce organised to hold the debate at Woolbrook Hall, near Tamworth in his New England electorate on the Friday of that same week but it never went ahead.
Mr Fitzgibbon said he wanted to debate the issue at Parliament House in Canberra on the Thursday and not at Woolbrook on the Friday night.
Mr Joyce said if the Shadow Agriculture Minister was unable to make the scheduled debate in regional NSW he could send a proxy, including Labor leader Bill Shorten or shadow investment minister Penny Wong.
But Mr Fitzgibbon accused his opponent of having organised a fictitious debate in northern NSW on the Friday night of a parliamentary sitting week, as a publicity stunt.
Mr Joyce was declared the winner after he faced Tony Windsor in a live, televised public debate held at The Tamworth Hotel in mid-March, shortly after the former independent MP declared he would challenge the Nationals leader to reclaim his old seat of New England.
