ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Barnaby Joyce has issued a warning to all Australians that Chinese-made products could pose a threat to national security after his Ariat boots exploded over the weekend.
The Member for New England called the media to the front gate of his Armidale home this morning where he displayed the busted Chinese-made high tops, one on each gatepost.
“We need to be taking the threat of Chinese-made products more seriously,” said Joyce in a slow and measured voice.
He tilted his head to the side and opened his eyes wide, signalling to the waiting press that it was time for a little story.
“Because it starts with our footwear. There I was, enjoying the cricket of an evening when bang! It sounds like someone let a gun off out the front. I think, ‘Finally, you know, Adam Bandt’s come for me!’ [laughs] So I retrieve my, you know, .38 snub nose from behind the Tom Roberts in the bedroom and I go out to confront this business,” he said.
“I swing open the door and my bloody boots are in the turning cirlce, flaming and busted up. I couldn’t believe it! The Chinese had obviously put semtex in the heels of my Rancher Roper Durangos! I mean, imagine if they went off when I was on a plane! You lot would be calling me the Richard Reid of the New England! And not that bloody talking wax figure they have on Channel 9, either! The British bloke who tried to blow up his boots!”
“It got my thinking, it must be everywhere. I got a lift home from golf on Saturday with a mate who’s just got himself a BYD EV. To get us off, he had to speak to it in Mandarin. Mind you, we’d both had ten schooners so it really could’ve been anything. Cantonese, even. But you get the picture. I wasn’t driving. But anyway, there’s probably semtex in that thing, along with the 40 000 AAA batteries.”
More to come.
