Barnaby Joyce has been accused of fuelling country-city divides after he said regional residents “couldn’t really give a shit” about Melbourne’s pandemic challenges.
The deputy prime minister also faces calls to apologise for saying about the Melbourne CBD: “You can almost smell the burning flesh from here.”
The dumped Nationals minister Darren Chester, who is from regional Victoria, says Joyce, the newly installed leader of the party, should focus on uniting the nation rather than promoting outdated divisions between city and country communities.
Labor demanded that Joyce apologise for the “disgusting” comments, while urging Scott Morrison to “make clear that this is entirely unacceptable from a senior member of his government”.
“The remarks are disgusting, divisive and unworthy of the office of the deputy prime minister, indeed of any holder of public office,” said Andrew Giles, a Labor frontbencher from a suburban Melbourne seat.
Joyce, who promoted his supporters and dumped opponents such as Chester in a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, was asked during an interview with News Corp Australia whether the nation needed to move on from the idea of having zero Covid-19 cases.
“It’s like saying I want zero cases of flu. It’s not possible,” Joyce told News Corp’s Sunday tabloids.
“It’s like saying I want zero cases of measles mumps. We’re going to shut the borders for that? It’s just not possible. You have to learn how live with it. How to manage it. What happens when next year we need to get universities going again, what, you close all the f----s down do you?”
When asked by the journalist to reflect on whether this approach would cause problems in Melbourne, Joyce replied: “Of course. But in country areas we couldn’t really give a shit. We’ve got record exports of coal. Record exports of beef. But we look at Melbourne, and go, you can almost smell the burning flesh from here.”
Giles, who is Labor’s spokesperson for cities and is also the acting shadow minister for regional development, said Joyce’s comments would be received “very badly” in Melbourne.
“People in Melbourne have done it tough and right now I’m thinking of those around the country who are also feeling anxious. The deputy prime minister should extend the same courtesy,” Giles said.
“People may have seen Barnaby Joyce as something like a harmless joke but now we’re seeing something that is entirely unworthy of Australia’s deputy prime minister.
“It’s not hard to show leadership, it’s not hard to show empathy, and all he seems to have done is set out to offend a large group of people for no particular reason.”
Chester, who was dumped as veterans’ affairs minister in the reshuffle, was also asked on Monday about Joyce’s comments. The MP for Gippsland said dividing city and country in this way was “so old school”. He said his children had gone to university in the city and returned to the country, citing it as an example of “where our communities mix between each other”.
“We love Melbourne and we suffer when Melbourne suffers,” Chester told the ABC.
“We want people from Melbourne to come to Gippsland and visit our community, just as we want to go down there and watch the footy … I just don’t think it’s any help to Australia, as we unite as a great nation going forward, to keep playing up these city-country divides.”
At a press conference on Monday, Chester said he intended to re-contest his seat under the Nationals banner rather than running as an independent, although he added that he had “been screwed over by the National party twice in the last three years”.
Asked whether he had exchanged any harsh words with Joyce over his dumping from the cabinet on Sunday, Chester said: “The conversation I had with Barnaby was so incoherent yesterday, I couldn’t actually explain what he was even saying to me.”
Joyce told reporters on Sunday that Chester had “absolute competency, and so do so many of my colleagues” but “that is the process of politics”.
Guardian Australia contacted Joyce and Morrison’s offices seeking a response to the backlash over the Covid-19 comments.