Ex-Nationals leader Troy Grant rebukes Deputy Premier John Barilaro for revealing party’s dirty laundry

The Nationals descended into full-blown civil war on Tuesday night with ex-leader Troy Grant making an astonishing rebuke of his successor Deputy Premier John Barilaro over his public airing of the party’s dirty laundry.

• Deputy Premier John Barilaro reveals health scare
• John Barilaro: Be a man, don’t put off health problems

The Nationals descended into full-blown civil war last night with ex-leader Troy Grant making an astonishing rebuke of his successor Deputy Premier John Barilaro over his public airing of the party’s dirty laundry.

Mr Grant, who is the Police Minister, told a private Nationals party room meeting that Mr Barilaro had “compromised the integrity of the party” by making claims in The Daily Telegraph that some of his colleagues had tried to use a cancer scare to launch a “strike” against him.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro opened up about his health scare. Picture: Kym Smith

The front page of The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, November 13.

Mr Grant, who will retire in March, made the spray even though he began by saying he knew his comments — which were made while Mr Barilaro was absent from the meeting and Parliament due to the health concerns over an abnormal lump in his throat — would leak out. Surgery was cancelled at the last minute on Monday night because crucial nerves in the area of the cyst made it too high risk.

NSW Police Minister and former Nationals leader Troy Grant knew his comments would be leaked.

It is understood one of Mr Grant’s issues was that some Nationals members didn’t even know about the health scare until they read it in The Telegraph.

Mr Grant, who is due to deliver his valedictory speech today, told the party room “John needs to be answerable to this article”.

He also said he didn’t believe the coup claims. Mr Grant would not comment yesterday on the criticism.

It came as former federal Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce backed Mr Barilaro strongly. “I’ll tell you this how works. You got snipers, you got targets and you got bullets,” Mr Joyce told 2GB.

“Snipers don’t really care ... they try to stay hidden or they try to stay protected. Targets are any political figure who they want to get rid of.’’