John Barilaro gets mental health treatment after difficult year
NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro has revealed he has been fighting a personal battle behind the scenes. After a tough year which included the death of his dad, Bara has revealed he has been receiving mental health treatment to overcome his “demons”. READ HIS STORY
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For the headline-making politician known simply as ‘Bara’, 2020 has been a battle on all fronts.
In just eight months, John Barilaro has aborted a tilt at federal politics, waged war against members of his own government over bushfires and brumbies in the Snowy Mountains, taken up the cause of the NRL and reportedly called a colleague the ‘c-word’.
Privately, away from the stoushes and controversies, the self-described “knockabout bloke from the bush” has been fighting a very personal conflict.
Since February, the outspoken NSW Deputy Premier has been seeing a psychiatrist to deal with “demons” from the past and present.
“Everybody’s had some level of trauma in their life,” Barilaro tells The Saturday Telegraph during an interview at his Martin Place office this week.
“It’s about how you manage it and for a long time I thought I could do it on my own — this year I couldn’t.
“I’ve had ups and downs in my life, a little bit of depression.
“I’ve never done anything about it and it all sort of crept up on me and this year, for the first time in my life, I reached out to a psychiatrist.
“I got some counselling, got put on some programs and some support and that has helped me immensely to overcome some of the demons of the past, I suppose in one way, and the demons I’m dealing with this year.
“I’m in the best place I think I have ever been for a long time when it comes to both my emotional and mental health.”
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An advocate for men’s health, Barilaro says blokes think they’re “Superman” and can overcome issues but they should “reach out” for help.
“When it comes to mental health, there has been a stigma for a long time but that’s breaking down,” he says.
“I know six months on, I feel a lot better than I was in February.”
The NSW Nationals leader has also spent a big chunk of 2020 criss-crossing the state, listening and helping traumatised communities struggling to recover from severe drought and the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires.
He admits the responsibility has taken a toll.
“I feel like in one way I’ve been that counsellor, sitting in rooms with bushfire victims or farmers who are thinking about going out to the back shed and shooting themselves,” Barilaro, the Minister Regional NSW and Disaster Recovery, says.
“Of course I’m able to call in support for those individuals but I carry that and I don’t think any of us are trained enough to understand how that actually eventually breaks you down or affects you.”
LOSS OF A HERO
He suffered another devastating blow last month when his beloved 79-year-old Dad, Domenico, died in Queanbeyan.
In his inaugural speech to parliament in 2011 as the member for Monaro, Barilaro called his Italian migrant father, who came to Australia in 1968, his “hero”.
He worked alongside his dad in the family’s joinery workshop in Queanbeyan after he dropped out of an accountancy degree at Canberra University.
“He’s been unwell for a while,” Barilaro, one of four children, says of his father.
When he was told Domenico might have four to eight weeks to live, Mr Barilaro booked time off to be with him. He died on July 22, the day before his official leave started.
“I was finishing a tour of regional NSW — I was in Orange — and at 7.30pm I got the phone call saying that he had passed away,” he says.
“That’s part of the regret that I live with because I wasn’t there.”
Only hours before losing his father, Barilaro’s 19-year-old daughter Domenica survived a car accident on the Hume Hwy on her way to Sydney.
Driving along the dual carriage, the university student had fallen asleep at the wheel, veering into a truck in the left lane which Barilaro says probably “saved her”.
“If it wasn’t for the truck, she would have gone head-on into the trees,” he says, adding the car was a write-off.
“The very first car that pulled up, it was a doctor, and the truckie was really good. That was two-and-a-half hours before Dad passed away.
“I genuinely think Dad was her guardian angel that day. It could have been a very different story for our family and I’ll tell you what, the loss of a daughter … that’ll break most people.”
A week after delivering the eulogy at his father’s funeral, attended by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Barilaro says he forced himself back to work.
“Day one at parliament was hard, day two was hard during Question Time when you start hearing the bickering and think ‘have I really wasted my life on this?’
“Then by day three — because by then everyone has said their condolences and stopped reminding you of what has occurred — I started getting back into the job.
“The job in one way helps, but yes, you’ve got to smile when you don’t want to smile, you’ve got to pretend sometimes when you know you’re not feeling great.”
He says his work leading the bushfire recovery efforts was a reminder “people had it worse”.
And it didn’t take Barilaro long to return to life on the road.
In 48 hours last week, he had travelled from one end of the state to the other, spruiking schools on the Tweed coast and meeting locals impacted by border restrictions in Albury.
The gruelling schedule away from the Queanbeyan home he shares with wife, Deanna, is tough on both him and his family. Finding the right balance has been difficult.
“I’m away three or four days a week, and when I get home, I might physically be home but emotionally I’m not because you’re exhausted, so what your family gets is the leftovers and that’s unfair,” he says.
“My wife said it once. She said ‘you come home, the kids are there, they love having you at home, you’re the great dad who turns up for two or three days, spoils them silly most of the time and then you leave. It’s almost like Cyclone John has hit the house and then you disappear and I’m left being Mum again — the one that makes the tough decisions’.”
The couple, who will celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary this week, have three daughters — Alessia, 23, Domenica and their “oops baby”, four-year-old Sofia.
“I think people don’t realise the impact this has on our families,” Barilaro says.
“We signed up for it so I’m not asking for people to feel sorry for us because I wouldn’t do it unless my family was behind me.
“Part of the whole journey of counselling is about learning my limits and what I need to leave in the tank for the weekend so my family don’t miss out.”
Barilaro will make a decision early next year on whether he will contest his seat at the state election in 2023.
“If you had asked me 12 months ago, I would’ve said ‘no more’ and then if you asked me six months ago, I had work to do, and now I’m in a very emotional space,” he says.
“I made Dad proud and I know this is what he wants me to do but at the same time, I’ve got to make that decision.
“I think it’s important for the party, for our communities, for everybody that if you are thinking of exiting, you should flag that.”
PREPARED TO SAY WHAT OTHERS THINK
He readily admits his outspokenness has landed him in hot water with political colleagues and the Premier.
“I think I’m more controversial than most,” he says, adding: “I’m prepared to say what others probably think.
“I probably don’t follow the rules when it comes to being a politician of a government.
“I’m often happy to criticise my government or federal government and colleagues if I believe it’s not right and I’ve always just been one of those guys that will never, ever hide behind a title or a role.”
Just this month, he took on NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean, again, to demand a recount on brumby numbers post-bushfires.
“There’ll definitely be colleagues, both in the Nats and in the Liberal Party, that wouldn’t agree with some of the positions I’ve taken publicly and that causes some tension and I have to wear that,” he says.
“I just hope that people will remember Bara always said what had to be said regardless of the political fallout.”
When talk turns to his relationship with Berejiklian, the 48-year-old is full of praise.
“I’ve always said I’m probably the luckiest deputy premier that has ever existed because I get to work with a really incredible Premier and leader,” he says.
“And people will say ‘of course you’re going to say that about your boss’ but let me break that down — she’s not my boss in real terms because I’m the leader of the Nationals and she’s leader of the Liberals.
“There’s a level of respect that we warn each other of what’s about to come and what needs to be said and the couple of times where I’ve got it wrong, is where I haven’t warned her and I’ve blindsided her.
“I’ve always been deeply sorry about that because I have the support of a Premier that allows me, Bara, to be Bara.”
Barilaro also ruled out ever contesting a federal seat after he bowed out of the Eden-Monaro by-election race on May 3.
“I woke up on the Sunday morning and just realised I didn’t have the fight left in me to do that,” he says.
“I still felt I had a lot to do at a state level.”
What followed was a barrage of Bara headlines.
He accused federal Nationals leader Michael McCormack of failing to support his bid for the southern NSW seat.
Then the day after friend and NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance announced he would contest the by-election, The Daily Telegraph reported Mr Barilaro had called him a “c**t”.
“We’re on good terms now,” he says of Constance, who withdrew his nomination for Eden-Monaro 24 hours after pledging he would run.
“We’ve been mates far too long to let something like that break us.
“I’ve said to Andrew and I’ve said to Gladys, the government and my party that I apologise for the whole Eden-Monaro debacle or whatever you want to call it. I apologised for the distraction that it may have caused everybody — it wasn’t my intent.”
Barilaro says he doesn’t “wake up every morning thinking ‘how do I get in the headlines’, but I can’t sit idle and stand by when I feel that there’s an injustice”.
“I got into politics for that very reason,” he says.
“When I think about my whole life, I was always the go-to person when I was running the local soccer club or at work or in industry associations or in community groups.
“I do wear my heart on my sleeve and when I actually get in a fight, I genuinely care about what I’m fighting for.
“That’s why I always say to people, if you want me to fight for you, you know you’re gonna get a fight, and I’m prepared to lose but I’m prepared to get a blood nose in trying.
“So I think this is who I am.”
Originally published as John Barilaro gets mental health treatment after difficult year
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