Barnaby Joyce launched a furious rant on the phone to Karl Stefanovic on Tuesday.
The Nationals backbencher was speaking on radio station 2GB from his parents’ home in New England which was just metres away from bushfire.
‘I’m at my parents’ place and… I’ve got to try and work out how I rig up some firefighting equipment around their house and try and save their house,’ Mr Joyce said.
‘There are spot fires round it. I don’t know how this works, we’ll just do our best job.’
Barnaby Joyce (pictured at his parents’ home in New England) launched a furious rant on the phone to Karl Stefanovic on Tuesday
Mr Joyce was calm until Stefanovic (pictured) asked him how bad the fires were
Mr Joyce was calm until Stefanovic asked him how bad the fires were.
Becoming angry, he said: ‘Yeah. How bad do you want it to look? 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**t.’
Earlier on Tuesday Joyce came under fire for saying two people who died in the fires ‘most likely’ voted for the Green Party.
He blames the party’s local councillors for opposing back-burning in high-risk areas – and made that clear in his rant to Stefanovic.
‘We’ve got to get on top of this s**t,’ he said.
‘We’ve got to get on top of this crap where there is all this bureaucracy that stands in the way of people keeping their place safe,’ he said.
‘We are just absolutely sick of people that have got nothing to do with our bloody life telling us what to do.
‘There are people that have been killed, there are people that have been hurt. It’s not pretend for us. It’s not like fluffing your feathers in the senate and showing what a smart little person you are.
‘This is our life, we actually live this s**t.’
In his controversial comments on Tuesday morning, Mr Joyce told Sky News: ‘I acknowledge that the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green party, so I am not going to start attacking them.
‘That’s the last thing I want to do. What I wanted to concentrate on is the policies that we can mitigate these tragedies happening again in the future.’
Mr Joyce’s comments were in relation to the tragic deaths of grandmother Vivian Chaplain, 69, and George Nole, 85, were both killed after a bushfire tore through the remote town of Wytaliba, three hours inland of Coffs Harbour, NSW.
A third victim was named as Julie Fletcher, whose remains were found in a destroyed building at Johns River, north of Taree, on Saturday afternoon.
Mr Joyce doubled down on disputed claims the fire service had conducted insufficient hazard reduction burns this year as a result of opposition from Greens councils.
Lost to fire: Grandmother Vivian Chaplain
Labor frontbencher Kristina Keneally slammed his remarks during a Senate estimates hearing.
‘How does he know who they voted for and why does it matter? They’re dead; they died in a bushfire. Isn’t that enough?’ Senator Keneally said.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale also blasted Mr Joyce, tweeting: ‘How low can you go? Why does it matter who the victims of this terrible fire voted for?’
‘Stop trying to shift blame and distract from your government’s failures to address the climate crisis, and remember: the first duty of a government is to look after its people.’
Despite raising policy suggestions of his own while the bushfires continued to burn, Mr Joyce criticised Greens MP Adam Bandt for demanding an end to coal production.
‘To make these spurious links – that a policy change would have stopped the fire – is so insulting and just completely beyond the pale,’ Mr Joyce said.
‘Because people think, well, maybe if that was the truth I wouldn’t be burnt, maybe if that’s the truth a good friend of mine would not be dead.
‘And you can’t do that Adam, you just can’t do stuff like that.’
His comments are the latest escalation in an increasingly bitter stoush between the Nationals and Greens over the cause of the bushfires.
On Monday, Nationals leader Michael McCormack attacked ‘raving inner-city lunatics’ for linking climate change to the fires.
In return, the Greens labelled the deputy prime minister a ‘dangerous fool’ who was putting lives at risk.
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John branded major party politicians ‘arsonists’ for supporting the coal industry.
His incendiary spray on climate policy came as catastrophic fire conditions gripped NSW.
‘You are no better than a bunch of arsonists – borderline arsonists – and you should be ashamed,’ Senator Steele-John told the chamber on Tuesday.
Mr Joyce’s comments are the latest escalation in an increasingly bitter stoush between the Nationals and Greens over the cause of the bushfires