Rumours enrage Barnaby

BARNABY Joyce has called for a major crackdown on social media companies following the spread of “fictitious and rubbish rumours” about an alleged relationship between his daughter and John Barilaro.

Mr Joyce on Thursday labelled the rumours, which have been circulating online since Mr Barilaro’s resignation as NSW deputy premier, as “utter rubbish”.

Mr Joyce (pictured) said he had been approached by local media to comment on the story.

“It’s just completely and utterly fictitious and rubbish,” he told ABC Radio National.

“Basically, people saying that she had been in a relationship with John Barilaro and that’s why he left, which is just total and utter rubbish.

“When you have local media outlets actually approaching you for comment on this and you say ‘what is your source?’ and they say ‘Facebook’ or ‘the source is Twitter’ and you say ‘well, it’s no good that these platforms just say sorry it’s too hard to control’.

“Well, it’s not too hard for you to collect your billions of dollars from it.”

Mr Barilaro on Sunday resigned from political life.