Polling on Barnaby Joyce in his neighbouring seat fuels speculation

A company owned by the NSW Nationals has conducted polling on Barnaby Joyce’s popularity and personal life.

Barnaby Joyce in question time yesterday. Picture: Gary Ramage

A company owned by the NSW Nationals has conducted polling on Barnaby Joyce’s popularity and whether he should be judged on his personal life.

However, the party says the polling was only ever intended to target voters in Mr Joyce’s seat, and calls to constituents in other seats were inadvertent.

Australian Services Union organiser Naomi Worrall, who lives in the coastal northern NSW seat of Page, posted on social media that she had missed a few calls the week before last.

“It was a robopoll, starting with the usual questions about how I would vote, if I support a particular party, etc,” Ms Worrall wrote. “But the questions quickly focused solely in (sic) Barnaby Joyce: whether I liked him, would vote for him, thought he should be judged on his personal life etc etc.

“Pretty much the whole thing was about whether I supported him which I thought at the time was a bit odd as I don’t live, and never have lived, in his seat.

“But it all becomes clear … This morning here’s Barnaby claiming he’s not campaigning for a leadership challenge. Seriously, how stupid do they think we are?” Ms Worrall posted, alongside an article about Nationals suggesting Mr Joyce was canvassing for the leadership.

The company behind the poll, Constituent Management Services, is owned by the NSW National Party. The party’s chairman, Bede Burke, and elder John Cameron are listed as directors in ASIC documents.

NSW Nationals director Ross Cadell said it had not polled Page, which neighbours New England, for months. “The only people we have knowingly asked Barnaby questions are people in Barnaby’s electorate,” he said. “We did do a Barnaby poll but that was some weeks ago, in his seat.”

On Sky News with Mr Joyce yesterday, fellow panellist and Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon said: “The National Party is using a related party to do polling, robo-calling in NSW, to test Barnaby Joyce.”

Mr Joyce: “Mate, I don’t know about it, so there you go.” Mr Fitzgibbon was sceptical, suggesting Mr Joyce “may even be funding it”, but he insisted: “I didn’t know about it.”

“OK,” Mr Fitzgibbon said, “that’s good, they’ve kept you in the dark just so you’ve got plausible deniability.”