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One Nation Are 'Bat Poo Crazy', Barnaby Joyce Says

Pauline's latest Islamophobic claim is "mad" and "does not help anybody".
Barnaby Joyce has sounded off on One Nation.
Fairfax Media
Barnaby Joyce has sounded off on One Nation.

After playing nice with One Nation since last July's election, it seems the Coalition has finally had enough of Pauline Hanson and her ragtag bunch of Islamophobic, homophobic, climate sceptic, 9/11-denying conspiracy theorists, with both the Prime Minister and his deputy slapping down the far-right party with their most cutting criticisms to date.

Needing most of the Senate crossbench to pass any legislation in the upper house, Malcolm Turnbull has been forced to at least humour One Nation in recent months. Turnbull and his party were forced to support (or at least to avoid criticising) One Nation through a range of ridiculous scandals and claims from Hanson's own anti-vaccination comments to crazy comments from state election candidates about marriage equality and the Port Arthur massacre.

But in the wake of the London terror attack which left five people dead, it seems Hanson went a bridge too far by asking people to "pray" for a Muslim ban and then today describing Islam as a "disease" that Australia needs to "vaccinate" against.

"It's kind of crazy," Joyce said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.

"First we've got no-vaxxers, then we've got 'Vladimir Putin's a good bloke', then we're sacking people because we're too old. What's the latest craziness?"

"You can't say stuff like that. You just can't. It's mad."

Joyce appeared lost for words during his reply, more bewildered and confused at One Nation's claims.

"I've got good mates, and not so good mates, who are Islamic. I'm going to walk up to them and say 'I'm sorry we've got someone who thinks you're a disease', and they'll say 'no I'm a human being'," he said.

"This bat poo crazy stuff does not help anybody."

It was a similar message to that spoken by Turnbull in a radio interview earlier on Friday, where he agreed with host Neil Mitchell's assertion that Hanson's comments were "dangerous".

"I have made this point, in pretty much those terms, essentially precisely those terms to Senator Hanson in the past," Turnbull said.

"Inciting hatred against any member or any part of the Australian community is always dangerous. It undermines the mutual respect that we have in our community... if you seek to attribute to all Australian Muslims, or all Muslims, responsibility for the crimes of ISIL, then you are doing what ISIL wants. That is the classic strategy of the terrorists and it has been forever. It's the strategy of terrorists in Afghanistan and the Middle East, around the world.

"If you turn on Muslims, if you were to be seen to be anti-Muslim in that way, that is precisely what the terrorists would like the Australian Government and the Australian community at large to do. It would help their work."

It comes just days after science minister Arthur Sinodinos took a not-so-veiled jab at One Nation, especially over their anti-vaxxer and climate sceptic comments, in saying some politicians had "a lack of respect for the scientific method" and that we were seeing "conclusions of experts being cast aside, in favour of ideological positions and selective use of facts".

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