Nationals should blast Joyce out or be blasted themselves

Barnaby Joyce at a press conference last week. Picture: Kym Smith.

Spooky isn’t it, that after a fortnight of self inflicted chaos courtesy of Barnaby Joyce’s antics, the Coalition’s primary and two party votes are both down. So is support for the PM personally, including his net satisfaction rating which has worsened from the previous Newspoll.

This week Nationals are apparently testing the public’s mood towards their leader while back in their electorates. Anecdotally, Nationals have told me that people are more than a little unimpressed with what has transpired, which is supported by the nationwide Newspoll results. A whopping 65 per cent of people said that they think Joyce should step down: that’s a more resounding result than the same sex marriage survey, which Joyce campaigned against because of his strong belief in “traditional marriage”.

Equally, the public likes Malcolm Turnbull’s medicine for the sick culture Joyce is part of: a ban on ministers sleeping with their staff. Almost as many voters support the ban as believe Joyce should resign, at 64 per cent.

Turnbull’s strong actions might be the only reason the polling results weren’t worse, including for him personally, with pollsters in the field shortly after he announced the ban at the end of the sitting week.

So far Joyce is standing firm, refusing to step aside, which means his colleagues may need to blast him out. They have a choice: blast Joyce out or be blasted out of office themselves come the next election.

The retail politician Joyce was once hailed for being is now a thing of the past. He’s damaged goods and his continuing presence will be a distraction for the government and a dead weight electorally.

The reason the public is so frustrated by what’s occurred is because people don’t like being preached to by those whose actions don’t measure up to the standards they demand of others. Whether it’s the traditional values Joyce has long spoken of, the pious complaints he’s made about Labor delivering “jobs for the boys”, or Joyce’s constant pronouncements on housing affordability in the regions verses the cities, his actions have contradicted the persona he once enjoyed as an everyday man.

Now Joyce has also become a victim of the age of entitlement, believing he’s entitled to remain Nationals leader and deputy PM irrespective of the damage he’s causing to those around him.

If Nationals MPs really think this debate is about the minor party standing up to its senior Coalition partner they might like to reflect on the issue they have chosen to fight on: the right to sleep with their staff.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia