Johnny Depp makes fun of Barnaby Joyce with dark joke about killing dogs

Johnny Depp has taken a swipe at Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce while making a macabre joke about his dogs at the Venice Film Festival.

Depp was fielding questions at a press conference about his upcoming film Black Mass when a reporter asked him if he planned on taking his dogs on a "gondola ride" while in Venice.

"I'm not sure that's appropriate," one of Depp's minders said.

But Depp had a more deadpan response.

"No, I killed my dogs and ate them, under direct orders of some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia," Depp said, a thinly veiled jibe at Joyce.

The joke references the dispute between Depp and Joyce after the Hollywood actor allegedly brought his two dogs into Australia illegally while he filmed the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.

In May, Joyce ordered the Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo be sent back to the US or face being destroyed.

The two dogs were sent back to the US soon after.