Barnaby Joyce Insists He’s Not A Racist Before Suggesting 65,000-Year-Old Custom Be Reviewed By His Mate Pauline

CANBERRA – One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has refused to call the Anzac Day booing of Aboriginal Elders racist instead suggesting the real problem may have been the Welcome to Country itself.

“I’m not a racist” clarified the man who recently joined a party founded on opposition to “the Aboriginal industry.” “I just think we should review whether welcomes from people who’ve been here 65,000 years are appropriate at a service commemorating people who arrived in 1788.”

Joyce – whose grandfather participated in the Gallipoli landing – said he was concerned about the “jarring” feeling some veterans experience when an Aboriginal Elder welcomes them to a continent.

When asked whether Aboriginal servicemen who fought at Gallipoli Tobruk Kokoda and Long Tan ever experienced “jarring” feelings about returning home to a country that wouldn’t let them drink at the RSL or vote until 1962 Joyce reportedly clarified those were “different times” and we needed to “look forward.”

The MP’s comments come as he transitions from the National Party to One Nation – a journey he describes as “ideological consistency” and others describe as “the political equivalent of moving from the saloon to the front bar.”

Pauline Hanson welcomed her newest defector noting she had been “saying this stuff for thirty years” and was glad somebody with a moustache was finally catching up.

A spokesperson for several veterans groups confirmed the only people upset by Welcome to Country at Anzac Day were people who had never served never enlisted and could not place Bunurong Country on a map.