Joyce in verbal scuffle on Uralla's Top Pub

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told a constituent to "piss off" after a heated exchange over mining in a pub in his New England electorate.
 

‘At that stage the bar staff woman came in beside me and she put her arm straight out between Barnaby Joyce and myself’

 

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce in Uralla's Top Pub.

Mr Joyce lost his temper with Nicola Chirlian, a Tamworth beef farmer and anti-mining activist who had tackled him on the topic of coal and coal seam gas mining on ABC's Q&A program in Tamworth on Monday.

According to witnesses at the Top Pub in Uralla, a female bar worker stepped in between Ms Chirlian and the Deputy Prime Minister after he had loudly told her to "piss off" three times in the public bar.

Fairfax Media has spoken to five people, including Ms Chirlian, who were in the bar on Thursday night and witnessed the exchange but there are two markedly different versions of what led to Mr Joyce, who famously told Johnny Depp's dogs Pistol and Boo to "bugger off" back to the US, reacting the way he did.

Read Heath Aston’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Election 2016: Barnaby Joyce tells constituent to 'piss off' during heated pub exchange.”