A live broadcast on Australian television unexpectedly turned into a viral comedy thanks to a dog off-camera.
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and One Nation party MP Barnaby Joyce was giving a remote interview to Sarah Ferguson, host of the program 7.30 on ABC. The conversation was quite tense: the journalist was questioning the politician about controversial statements by party leader Pauline Hanson, migration policy, and accusations of racial intolerance.
When the host asked if Joyce was truly satisfied with the direction his party was heading, the politician began to answer:
— I think…
But he didn't get to finish. Suddenly, Joyce turned aside and shouted deafeningly:
— SIT!
For a few seconds, it might have seemed that the emotional command was directed at the journalist herself. However, the politician immediately became embarrassed, smiled, and explained:
— Sorry, that's for the dog.
It turned out that a pet nearby was disrupting the interview and was likely barking or moving restlessly off-camera. Joyce tried to continue the conversation, but the invisible dog had already become the main star of the broadcast by then.
The interview clip quickly spread across social media. Users joked that the politician decided to respond to his opponents in "dog language," and some commentators called the incident one of the most vivid television bloopers of the year.
Adding to the situation's irony is the fact that Barnaby Joyce's name is already associated with a famous "dog" story. In 2015, while serving as Minister for Agriculture, he demanded that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's Yorkshire terriers be removed from Australia, having been brought into the country in violation of strict biosecurity rules. At the time, Joyce warned that the animals could be euthanized otherwise.
Eleven years later, dogs have once again unexpectedly found themselves at the center of his political career. However, this time it didn't end in an international scandal, but in a few seconds of awkwardness, thousands of jokes, and a new viral video.
The video was published, among other places, on the YouTube channel of 9 News Australiа.
