By JO HARRISON
BARNABY Joyce was officially declared the Member for New England at the Electoral Office in Armidale last Thursday 26 September at a special event to finalise the results for the electorate.
He has already hit the ground running appointed to the government’s leadership team as the Agriculture Minister, organising his staff and getting his offices prepared in Canberra, Tamworth and Tenterfield.
However, with a busy schedule ahead of him and plenty of time spent in Canberra he is adamant that he will be in his electorate as much as possible.
“This is an incredible honour and I will make sure that I do the job that has been given to me by the people of the New England,” Mr Joyce said.
“My priority is to continue on the road around the electorate but I have also been doing a lot of work with the department that I now have responsibility over.
“I have been in meetings with the Indonesian Ambassador to increase our export of live cattle and I have been in talks with Tony Abbott about a number of issues that are very pertinent to the people of the New England.”
Mr Joyce said his funding pledge for the Armidale Airport during his election campaign will be top on his list over the coming months as well as the new dementia facility in Guyra and Chaffey Dam.
“I will be working with the Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton who I have asked to come to Armidale to start planning how we deal with the Armidale Hospital,” he said.
“The hospital is one of my long term goals. Improvement of the facility is critical to people’s lives.
“We will end up doing something but we have to find the funding allocations within the Health Ministers department.”
Breakout panel
First preference results for each candidate:
Phillip Girle, Palmer United Party 4751
Brian Dettmann, One Nation 1569
Pat Schultz, The Greens 4190
Rob Taber, Independent 12,573
Jamie McIntyre, Independent 6066
Barnaby Joyce, The Nationals 49,495
Richard Witten, Citizens Electoral Council 354
Stephen Hewitt, Country Labor 10,825
Aaron Evans, Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) 1497
