Newspoll: Barnaby Joyce should quit as voters punish government
BARNABY Joyce’s position as leader of the National Party is in doubt after the MP tipped to replace him repeatedly dodged questions five times today about his future.
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BARNABY Joyce’s position as leader of the National Party is in doubt after the MP tipped to replace him repeatedly dodged questions today over whether Mr Joyce has his support.
It comes as a new poll shows most Australians think the Deputy Prime Minister should quit and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull acknowledged Mr Joyce’s affair had been “distracting” and “unhelpful” for the government.
The Deputy Prime Minister has taken leave this week as the scandal surrounding his affair with former staffer, Vikki Campion, continues to damage the government.
He refused to resign as Nationals leader on Friday after Nationals MPs backed him during the week to remain.
But speculation is mounting that Mr Joyce could face a leadership challenge on Monday when the party meets in Canberra.
Veterans Affairs Minister Michael McCormack, who has been named as the most likely candidate to replace Mr Joyce, added to speculation of a challenge today when he repeatedly dodged questions about his support for Mr Joyce in a live television interview.
Mr McCormack was pushed five times to answer the question before he told Sky News: “Of course I support Barnaby Joyce, he’s our leader, he’s been a very good leader.”
He played down speculation there would be a leadership challenge next week but did not rule one out.
He said there was no spill or vacancy “at the moment”.
“Barnaby Joyce will continue to be the leader as long as he gets the support of the National party room,” he said.
PM: JOYCE SCANDAL ‘UNHELPFUL’
Earlier today, Prime Minister Turnbull said Mr Joyce’s affair has been “distracting” and “unhelpful” for the Coalition as a new poll showed most Australians think the Deputy Prime Minister should quit.
The Prime Minister acknowledged this morning the Coalition had taken a hit from the scandal over Mr Joyce’s affair with a former staffer over the past two weeks.
It follows the latest Newspoll today which revealed that 65 per cent of voters believed Mr Joyce should resign as the leader of the National Party.
The poll, conducted by The Australian, also shows a third of those supported Mr Joyce leaving Parliament immediately.
Both Mr Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop admitted the scandal had been “distracting” for the government.
“She’s right. It is distracting and unhelpful,” Mr Turnbull told radio station 3AW.
While Mr Joyce claims to have the majority support of his party to continue as Nationals leader, Mr Turnbull told 3AW that he didn’t know if that was the case.
But he said he and Mr Joyce could now “move on” after speaking at the weekend following their public spat on Friday, when Mr Joyce called the PM’s remarks “inept”.
“We’ve had some words,” Mr Turnbull told 3AW.
“I made some very strong comments on Thursday. I stand by all of them. They needed to be made. Barnaby reacted to them. And now we move on and get on with good government.”
Mr Turnbull said personally the two party leaders had put “whatever tensions there were behind us”.
“We have to be very professional about the relationship and get on with it. “There is not an issue or conflict between the Liberal Party and the National Party,” he said.
Asked if he would sack ministers in the future for having sexual relations with their staff, Mr Turnbull said: “I would expect them to resign, I wouldn’t expect to sack them.”
He revealed his wife Lucy had reached out to Natalie Joyce, Mr Joyce’s estranged wife, after the affair became public.
Mr Turnbull said Mr Joyce had never explicitly told him of his relationship with his former staffer, Vikki Campion, who is now expecting his child.
JOYCE DEFIANT AS VOTERS WANT HIM OUT
The Deputy Prime Minister refused to resign on Friday despite the damage the scandal over his affair has done to the government.
He told Fairfax Media yesterday he believed that he and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull could still work together despite their public criticism of each other in recent days.
The Nationals leader told Fairfax Media “Malcolm and I are strong personalities” who can retain their working relationship after the pair met in private on Saturday to settle their differences.
He also blamed his travel schedule for being a “substantial cause” of his split with wife Natalie Joyce.
“Like most people in a strong business relationship, there are times you need to discuss your views because that’s how you resolve things,” he told the publication.
“I don’t believe either of us are the sort of people who whisper behind closed doors — if you have an issue, you confront it head on and that’s what we did.”
Senior Liberals are powerless to remove Mr Joyce despite the latest poll showing Mr Turnbull and the Coalition haven’t escaped unscathed from the affair scandal.
NEWSPOLL DIRE FOR TURNBULL
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has taken a swipe at the “messy” start to the year as today’s poll showed all the advances that the Coalition made over summer, which were clear in 2018’s first Newspoll, have been wiped out.
The Coalition fell two points to 36 per cent, returning it to the dire figures of late last year, and has fallen one point behind Labor’s, which hasn’t changed.
Mr Turnbull’s personal approval ratings also dropped a massive five points to 40 per cent poll, leaving only a seven point margin between the Liberal leader and Labor leader Bill Shorten as preferred Prime Minister.
“It’s been a pretty messy beginning to the year,” Mr Abbott told Sydney radio station 2GB this morning.
He said the Joyce affair, which sparked gossip inside parliament and “right around the country” over the past two weeks, had been a “very serious distraction”.
Government needed to focus on the fundamentals of doing what it could to boost wages, lower power prices and take the pressure off the housing market, he said.
“But I am sure that everyone from the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister down want to get back onto that main game,” Mr Abbott said.
In a veiled swipe at Mr Turnbull’s public dressing down of Mr Joyce’s conduct last Thursday, Mr Abbott added that giving public advice was “not the best way forward”.
Asked about today’s poll results, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said Mr Joyce’s role was a matter for the National Party MPs.
“They elect their leader and I’m sure they’ll take a whole range of matters into account as they consider this issue,” she told Sky News.
Ms Bishop said it had been a “very distracting ten days” for the Coalition but would not be drawn on whether she thought Mr Joyce should quit.
“We’ll see how things turn out in the coming days and weeks,” she said.
The two-party-preferred vote has put the Coalition back to where it was in December trailing Labor 53-47.
However, the Coalition might be thankful that, in the wake of the Joyce debacle, the news wasn’t worse.
The rift within the Coalition over Mr Joyce’s future were reflected in the poll with 35 per cent of Coalition supporters believing he should remain as Nationals leader compared to 33 per cent opposed to him remaining.
In a breakdown of voters, 29 per cent think Mr Joyce should step down as leader of the Nationals but still remain on the backbench, while 21 per cent believe he should step down and not recontest the next election either.
But 21 per cent of voters claim that Mr Joyce should immediately quit politics altogether.
Men also appeared to be less forgiving than women with 23 per cent believing that he should quit politics altogether compared to 20 per cent of female voters.
Regional voters were also more inclined to see Mr Joyce resign from Parliament immediately with 25 per cent in favour compared to 20 per cent of city voters.
This story was originally published in The Australian and is reprinted with permission.