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The Prime Minister has responded to the Deputy Premier's leaked text message calling him "a hypocrite and a liar".
Scott Morrison published a statement this morning saying: "Barnaby approached me this week to inform me of these text messages."
"He sincerely apologised and I immediately accepted his apology in good faith."
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"I understand Barnaby was in a different headspace last year, both professionally and personally, and so I know he genuinely no longer feels this way."
"Relationships change over time. Politicians are humans beings too. We all have our frailties and none of us are perfect."
"Since coming to the role of DPM, it is fair to say that we both positively surprised each other. We were never close before this and never pretended to be."
"But in these roles we have really found our rhythm, as we have concluded AUKUS, settled our climate change policy and continued to fight the pandemic."
It comes as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported last night that Mr Joyce was on the backbench when he sent the text to Brittany Higgins via an unnamed third party on March 22, 2021.
Ms Higgins, a former Liberal Party staff member, leaked Mr Joyce's message after the Deputy Prime Minister this week called for an anonymous Liberal minister to reveal themselves after their scathing criticisms of Mr Morrison in private texts with former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian were made public.
The SMH and The Age report that the message to Ms Higgins from Mr Joyce stated: "Tell BH [Brittany Higgins] I and Scott, he is Scott to me until I have to recognise his office, don't get along.
"He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time.
"I have never trusted him and I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie."
Mr Joyce said on Friday night that he had "unreservedly apologised" to Mr Morrison and that it was "common knowledge" the pair had not always "seen eye to eye".
"In the last 24 hours I have become aware that a screenshot of a text message has been circulating among third-parties that contains comments I made in March 2021 when I was a backbencher," Mr Joyce said in a statement.
"While the text message was supposed to be private, what I said in that message was wrong; and I have unreservedly apologised to the Prime Minister for my comments.
"It is common knowledge that in the past the Prime Minister and I had not always seen eye to eye.
"But I have worked extremely closely with the Prime Minister over the last seven months since I returned to the role of Deputy Prime Minister; and the Prime Minister is a person of high integrity and honesty in what is possibly the most difficult job in the nation."
The leaked Mr Joyce text message comes after journalist Peter van Onselen put to Mr Morrison during the Press Club lunch on Monday details from a private text message chat between Ms Berejiklian and the unnamed current Liberal cabinet minister during which the Prime Minister was described as "a horrible, horrible person", a "fraud" and "a complete psycho".
Mr Joyce said the following day that the unnamed minister should come forward.
"I would suggest that if you know anything about this, don't wait to be outed, out yourself," he said. "And give an explanation."
Source: 9News
