Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Fortunately I do still support Queensland, and it was a bad night.

I thank the honourable member for his question. As a gastroenterologist, he is probably in the right place to deal with any blockages that we might have over there in the Senate. It is very important that we understand that, just with the money that it is costing us in interest a month, I know they are expanding the Bruce Highway in your electorate, and that is about a billion dollars—we could do that every month with the interest. I know you have got Bucketts Way over in your area as well. We could do that 57 times a month with the money we are spending on interest.

If we had $10 notes, on the interest, we could lie those $10 notes end to end. We could start in Melbourne, go through your electorate in Lyne and all the way to Cairns. You know what would happen when we got to Cairns? We could turn around and keep lying the $10 notes down and go all the way back to Melbourne. Do you know what would happen when we got to Melbourne? We could turn around and go back up to Cairns. And do you know what happens when we get to Cairns? We turn around and go back to Lyne. But they say there is not a problem!

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