NATION Bullet linked to poll threat
A SINISTER threat to carry out a shooting at a country school marred the final day of Barnaby Joyce’s campaign to win back his seat of New England yesterday.
Police will be on guard at polling booths in the northern NSW electorate of New England as tens of thousands of voters cast their ballots in today’s by- election, which was triggered when the High Court ruled the Nationals leader was a dual citizen, forcing him to resign.
There are 17 contenders running but Mr Joyce is expected to comfortably regain his seat and be reinstated as Deputy Prime Minister, despite an at times dramatic campaign that has included death threats and rumours about his personal life.
Yesterday, it was revealed a bullet and threatening note warning of an election day shooting had been discovered at a school in Quirindi, near Tamworth.
NSW Police confirmed the incident but would not say whether the note was linked to Mr Joyce’s re- election bid.
The bullet was reportedly accompanied by graffiti warning of a “shooting” that would take place today.
“Police from the Oxley Local Area Command are investigating after the discovery of an item and graffiti at an educational facility in Quirindi,” a NSW Police spokesman said.
The discovery followed an incident last month when a bullet was sent to Mr Joyce’s former electorate office in Tamworth alongside a threatening note from an Adani mine protester.
Flanked by a security guard, Mr Joyce addressed the media in Tamworth yesterday and said he was “cautious” following the incidents.
“When people deliver a bullet to your office and say that they are going to use it on you, that means that they have got access to a bullet and they’ve probably got access to a firearm,” Mr Joyce said.
“I can’t judge when people put bullets under bricks and say that a certain event is going to occur. I can just be cautious and I’ve also got to be cautious of the people around me.
“What happens if it’s not me, what happens if they hurt someone around me? I don’t want that.” FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop has become the unofficial ambassador of a luxury jewellery company owned by a Liberal donor, but has not declared up to $ 200,000 worth of jewels that have been gifted or loaned to her.
Ms Bishop has appeared in more than 20 of elite jeweller Margot McKinney’s social media posts advertising the earrings, which are worth between $ 13,000 and $ 70,000 a pair, in the past year. But she has refused to explain her relationship with the Brisbane- based jeweller.
The Liberals’ deputy leader has not clarified whether she paid for the vast collection of earrings or whether they were a gift or on loan to her.
There is no mention of the jewellery on Ms Bishop’s register of pecuniary interests, which places on the public record any MP’s interests that conflict or may be seen to conflict with their public duty.
Ms McKinney has previously donated to the Liberal Party, giving amounts of $ 5000 and $ 1000 to the Queensland branch in 2010.
Yesterday Ms Bishop and the designer attended the Australian Government’s G’Day USA breakfast at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which Ms McKinney sponsors together with Qantas and Westfield. Asked if she was wearing Ms McKinney’s striking pearl earrings, Ms Bishop said: “Yes I am.”
Over the past year she has been photographed wearing the earrings in numerous of the jeweller’s social media posts.
Ms McKinney has also featured the “fabulous” deputy leader of the Liberal Party donning her earrings on the company’s official website. But she has also declined to explain whether the earrings were a gift, a loan or if the Foreign Minister pays full price for them.