PM calls for Barnaby Joyce to be sacked over 'bullet' comment at wind farm protest rally

Anthony Albanese has called for Barnaby Joyce to be sacked from the shadow frontbench after insinuating voters should use their ballot papers as bullets to "say goodbye" to the prime minister and other senior Labor figures.

The Nationals' frontbencher told protesters attending an anti-wind farm rally to "get ready to load that magazine" and vote out the prime minister, federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen and local MP Stephen Jones.

"The bullet you have is this little piece of paper, it goes in the magazine called the voting box and it's coming up," he said.

"Get ready to load that magazine. Go, goodbye Chris. Goodbye, Stephen. Goodbye, Albo," he said.

Mr Albanese said the gun analogy, which was made just two weeks after an assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump and amid concerns about increasing harassment and violent acts targeting MPs, was "completely unacceptable".

The prime minister said he was concerned the language could incite violent behaviour.

"I am not sure what Barnaby Joyce has to do to lose his job," Mr Albanese told ABC's Afternoon Briefing.

"Peter Dutton has had four reshuffles already. There should have been a fifth today.

"This bloke goes along to a rally, he uses entirely inappropriate and violent language, including that myself and two others, ministers, should be gone.

"It is one thing to have extreme language on climate change that he has done in the past, such as Whyalla being wiped out and all the absurdities he has put forward, but this is a new low and it is unacceptable."

The former deputy prime minister has been criticised for the comments he made at the rally against offshore wind farms in Lake Illawarra, south of Wollongong.

He told the crowd their vote was a weapon in opposing the "turds" and urged attendees to turn up and cast their ballot against it.

Mr Joyce apologised for the remark during an earlier appearance on morning television.

"I said your ballot paper is … the weapon you have. It shouldn't be a bullet. It should be the ballot paper and the ballot box," he told Channel 7.

"I apologise for using that metaphor."

Mr Dutton's office said the apology was appropriate.

Mr Jones, the local MP and federal Labor frontbencher, described his remarks as "dog whistling to political violence".

The newly minted special envoy for social cohesion, Labor MP Peter Khalil, described the remarks as "highly irresponsible".

"We've seen what's happened with other jurisdictions in the US and the polarisation and what's gone on with the attempted assassination in the US, so it's highly irresponsible," he told ABC's RN.

"We don't have to use that kind of violent rhetoric. It's really unnecessary and it's unacceptable and it should be called out."

Speaking later with ABC's Illawarra Mornings program, Mr Joyce again acknowledged the metaphor "probably wasn't appropriate" but said he stood by referring to the vote as "the most powerful thing you have".

"They are going offence hunting because they have come down here, they've stirred things up," he said.

"We won't talk about the wind towers, we'll just distract because that will get the people of the Illawarra thinking about something else and really they should be thinking about what is going to happen to your environment down here."

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said she wouldn't have used the same metaphor but noted "Barnaby does use colourful language".

"When it comes to promoting social cohesion everyone in their language and words should be lifting the debate to what brings people together not what pushes people apart and I think all of us do that," she told ABC's RN.

"By focusing and trying to interrogate individual comments at different times I don't think that's particularly helpful."