Listen: How do you solve a problem like Barnaby?

Credit: Artwork — Marija Ercegovac

Samantha Selinger-Morris: Before we get into how this is all sort of exploded, I guess in political circles, can you briefly tell me a bit about Barnaby Joyce, because he’s got a colourful history of behaviour that has been at times called into question.

James Massola: Yeah, look, colourful is a word often attached to Barnaby Joyce. So if you go way back to 2005, he was elected to the Queensland Senate spot, the fourth spot that no one thought that they could win. At that early stage of his career, he was a real thorn in the side of the Howard government, crossing the floor regularly over things like voluntary student union, threatening to block the partial sale of Telstra. He had a meteoric rise up to shadow finance minister for Tony Abbott then got his billions and trillions confused in his speech and was warning about $100 lamb roasts because of the carbon price and all these sorts of things. So he kind of provoked or rather attracted a lot of criticism from political opponents for hyperbolic claims. But at the same time, he was always seen as a very good retail politician.

He switched back to his home state of New South Wales and to the lower house in 2013. He ended up being deputy PM twice - once under Malcolm Turnbull and once under Scott Morrison. All through those years he was an at times controversial figure for everything from you know, kicking Amber Heard, Johnny Depp and their dogs out of the country for violating quarantine laws, to more serious things like having an extramarital affair with a former staffer, who’s now his wife, a lady named Vicki Campion, who’s a former journalist.

There were other claims of inappropriate behaviour around that time. This is back in 2018. It triggered the bonk ban, saying, you know, essentially, staff and politicians shouldn’t be couples, essentially, particularly if they’re working in the same office.

He’s been instrumental essentially, in bringing the Coalition over more than a decade away from support for climate action and more into the camp, if you like, of climate change scepticism. So that’s, I guess, just some of the backstory. I mean, I’ve barely touched the surface.

Samantha Selinger-Morris: I think a lot of us were reminded of it colourfully last week during the ABC’s latest documentary about the Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison years of being prime ministers, and there was that infamous footage of Malcolm Turnbull giving a press conference in which he said that Barnaby Joyce had, with his extramarital affair, a shocking error of judgement and had “appalled all of us”.

James Massola: Yeah look, I remember that press conference very well. It was, you know, I think Turnbull said that on reflection, maybe he went a little bit too far. Barnaby Joyce was furious about it, but he was and this comes out in Nemesis as well and other reporting at the time. He wasn’t a particular fan of Scott Morrison’s either. I remember, in the late days of the Morison government, someone leaked me a copy of some text messages that Joyce had sent to Brittany Higgins saying that, you know, Scott Morrison’s a liar and all this sort of stuff. Even though they were deputy PM and PM for a period together, they were not allies. He is a person who takes no prisoners. He and his supporters in the National Party are not huge supporters of David Littleproud, the current National Party leader.

Samantha Selinger-Morris: Which brings me to the obvious question, which is how have the Nationals responded to this incident?

James Massola: I’d say it’s pretty broadly split into two groups, just like the Nationals party room, there’s a sort of hardcore of support for Littleproud, the current leader, who say this has embarrassed party. Nationals frontbencher Anne Webster said in the Nationals party room meeting on Monday that this has hurt us once again, particularly with female voters because of this perception that we’re a bit out of touch, that we’re dinosaurs, you know, those sorts of things.

Joyce supporters have unsurprisingly circled the wagons and said, ‘look, he’s got an illness. You know, he made a mistake. He didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t break any laws. He didn’t abuse anyone.’ Those sorts of things. He’s embarrassed. He’s sorry. And he certainly looked shamefaced when he turned up late to parliament yesterday. So you know (they have said) ‘cut Barnaby some slack, give him some time’. Privately what they’re saying, politicians from the sort of pro and anti-Barnaby camps, is that this probably cruels any chance he has of ever returning to the leadership of the party.