Malcolm Turnbull has delivered a cutting four-word insult to his former deputy Barnaby Joyce.
Turnbull, who is no stranger to sharing his thoughts, was speaking at an event at the State Library of Victoria this week when he was asked about Joyce, who served as his deputy between 2016 and 2018.
The former prime minister reportedly told the audience that he ‘got on well with Barnaby a lot of the time’.
But he described Joyce as ‘mercurial’, meaning he is given to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood, before he delivered his scathing put-down.
‘Better in the morning,’ Turnbull quipped.
It is a reference to Joyce’s well-documented struggles with alcohol.
Infamously, Joyce gave up the grog when Daily Mail Australia published a video of him sprawled on a Canberra pavement mumbling obscenities into his phone late at night in February last year.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is no stranger to sharing his unfiltered thoughts, was speaking at an event at the State Library of Victoria this week when he was asked about Barnaby Joyce, who served as his deputy between 2016 and 2018 (pictured: Bridget McKenzie, Joyce, Turnbull and Julie Bishop in 2017)
Turnbull reportedly told the audience that he ‘got on well with Barnaby a lot of the time’. But he described Joyce as ‘mercurial’, meaning he is given to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood, before he delivered his scathing put-down (pictured: Joyce with his wife Vikki)
He blamed the embarrassing episode on mixing prescription pills with alcohol and in an interview with Nine Newspapers last June, said he had quite the booze and lost 15kg in the process.
But he insisted he was not a ‘wowser’, adding: ‘Maybe at some stage I’ll have a beer again, but at the moment, nah.’
When Daily Mail Australia visited him in his seat of New England during the election campaign, Joyce was seen picking up a bottle of chardonnay and a six pack of James Boags’ premium beer.
At the time, Joyce had effectively been trapped in his seat by a leadership rule brought in by Nationals leader David Littleproud which required Nationals MPs to seek permission from head office to travel outside their electorates.
Joyce, 58, insisted he was not a ‘sook’ and would go where he was asked.
‘Look I’ll go where I’m asked. If somebody said last week, “oh, s**t. We’re in trouble. We need you to go here, here and here.” I’m not a f***ing sook. I’d immediately do it,’ he told this publication.
‘I had the Hunter Valley campaign saying “please, please, please come down” so I went down and Lyne said “please, please, please come across”, so I went across, I’m not a sook – I’ll go if I’m asked.
‘But if I’m not asked, I’m not going to just turn up. That’s in their hands. In the meantime, I’ll try to turn this into the safest seat in Australia.’
When Daily Mail Australia visited him in his seat of New England during the election campaign, Joyce was seen picking up a bottle of chardonnay and a six pack of James Boags’ premium beer
He was not far off achieving that, recording an almost two per cent swing and winning by nearly 40,000 votes.
Joyce was booted from the frontbench in the newly-unveiled shadow cabinet this week.
He rejected Nationals leader David Littleproud’s claim that the new frontbench was about promoting ‘generational change’.
‘It’s not about generational change, Joyce told Nine.
‘There are people who are older than me now. I’m 58, I’m not 103.
‘So it’s not generational change, it’s politics and personalities. Let’s call it for what it is, let’s be straight.’
Daily Mail Australia approached Joyce for comment over Turnbull’s ‘better in the morning’ sledge.
Turnbull, 70, regularly weighs in on current affairs.
He sparked global headlines in March when he described Donald Trump as ‘chaotic, rude, abrasive and erratic’ in an interview on Bloomberg TV.
The US President hit back, describing him as a ‘weak and ineffective leader’.
Turnbull referenced Trump again this week, when he made fun of his strategy of releasing information and signing executive orders at such an overwhelming rate that is difficult for the media to effectively hold him to account.
The technique, called ‘flooding the zone’, did not impress Turnbull.
‘Flooding the zone with s***,’ was his view.