A comedian famous for his put-downs of the rich and famous has laid a brutal sledge on Barnaby Joyce.
Englishman John Oliver, the host of news satire program Last Week Tonight on HBO, laid into the deputy prime minister and his boss with typical caustic wit.
Oliver said it was ‘really hard to root for a good guy in an exchange between Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce’ in leaked texts where Mr Joyce called the PM ‘a hypocrite and a liar’.
Comedian John Oliver joked he would have to write ‘shut the f*** up, Barnaby’ in a group chat with the deputy prime minister and Scott Morrison
‘That is the kind of exchange you would read on a phone and then want to throw that phone into the ocean,’ he told News Corp from his New York base.
‘There is no group chat I would rather be on less than one with Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce.
‘All you’d want to do is type “unsubscribe” or “shut the f**k up, Barnaby”, as often as you could.’
Oliver also denied he had a low opinion of Australia after he described the country as ’70 per cent uninhabitable because of desert, and 30 per cent uninhabitable because of Australians’ during an earlier monologue on Mr Joyce.
The comic insisted the joke was delivered from ‘a point of love’.
He has previously praised Australia for both its gun control laws and its plain packaging for cigarettes laws when compared with the US approach to the same issues.
Deputy Prime Minster Barnaby Joyce addresses the media on February 5 after texts in which he described Prime Minister Scott Morrison as ‘a hypocrite and a liar’ were leaked
Oliver also has something of an obsession with Mr Joyce.
In 2015 he introduced his American audience to Mr Joyce, then Australia’s agriculture minister, when he threatened to euthanise Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s dogs Pistol and Boo after they were illegally brought into Australia.
‘For an agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce really seems to hate animals,’ Oliver joked.
Oliver joked Mr Joyce’s ultimatum meant Australia had ’50 hours to get everything Australian out of our country or else’, including Fosters, Silverchair and Vegemite.
‘Your minister has just made this personal and I’m afraid America has no choice but to respond,’ he warned in a routine at the time.
‘You can start by taking back all your disgusting Vegemite, which tastes like a kangaroo did a salty s**t.’
Three years later, Oliver used a segment to mock Mr Joyce’s ‘family values’ after the National Party leader’s affair with staffer Vicky Campion was revealed.
The comedian said Mr Joyce was a conservative who had opposed same-sex marriage in Australia.
‘You might think that that is hypocritical, but in reality Joyce has such incredible family values that he can’t restrict them to just one family,’ Oliver joked.
John Oliver has something of an obsession with Mr Joyce, previously mocking him over his affair and his threat to kill Johnny Depp’s dogs, Pistol and Boo
Oliver also revealed the time he was pranked by Russell Crowe when his show tried to make fun of the Kiwi-Australian Hollywood actor during his ‘divorce auction’ from ex-wife Dannielle Spencer.
Last Week Tonight paid US$110,000 for Crowe’s codpiece from boxing film Cinderella Man and tried to donate it to the last Blockbuster Video outlet in the US.
Crowe caught on to the prank and donated the money to Australia Zoo to create the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.
‘I mean, that’s a perfect joke. I cannot tell you how happy I was… It’s literally the perfect execution of a retort and I have a lifelong respect for him for that,’ Oliver told News Corp.
Oliver was promoting the ninth season of Last Week Tonight, filmed once more in front of a studio audience after two years in which the host broadcast the show from home due to Covid-19.
‘I will say at the start of the pandemic in 2020 as the death count was mounting and we’re doing these shows in my home, there was part of me early on in those shows starting to worry about what actually is the point of laughter here…’ Oliver told Forbes.
‘To what level is my favorite kind of level, stupidity, important?’
