Nationals leadership contender Matt Canavan has vowed to take the fight to One Nation as his former ally Barnaby Joyce prepares to defect to Pauline Hanson’s party, while Nationals elder statesman Michael McCormack made a last-ditch plea to his former rival to stay.

Joyce told this masthead on Wednesday he “will have more to say tomorrow” about his political future after hinting earlier in the week that he would publicly confirm his expected move to One Nation as early as Friday. Earlier, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley avoided an opportunity to ask him to stay in the Nationals.

Nationals allies including McCormack and Canavan, a friend and former staffer for Joyce, have been urging the former leader of the party to stay in the tent.

But Joyce’s Monday night steak dinner with Hanson was viewed as near-confirmation he is quitting, prompting Canavan to flick the switch to campaigning against an old ally and boss who would become a political enemy who could cannibalise the already-depressed Coalition vote.

Canavan, who has not served in a Coalition cabinet or shadow cabinet since he resigned from the ministry in 2020, also said he was willing to return to the frontbench. He told this masthead on Wednesday that he would be happy to take a shadow cabinet position because he was no longer out of step with party policy since Ley dumped net zero.

“I’m not agitating to come back and I continue to love doing the job of a senator representing Queensland, but if I’m asked, I would take a role because I’ll do anything I can now to help defeat a Labor government,” he said.

“I couldn’t [enter a shadow cabinet] position while the shadow cabinet supported net zero.”

McCormack spent an hour with Joyce in Parliament House’s Aussies cafe on Wednesday, making the case for Joyce to stay in the Nationals “for a number of reasons”.

“I think he owes it to himself, he owes it to his legacy, he owes it to those regional people who put him here, and he owes it to the party which gave him the great privilege of making him deputy prime minister, not once, but as he reminded me, three times,” McCormack said.

“Is he a maverick? Of course he is ... but he has country people at his heart. And I would just hate to think that in 20 years time, somebody will look at that wall up the front of the national party room and see only one person who has ever walked out on the party which gave them the great honour of being the leader. I don’t want him to be that person.”

McCormack urged Joyce to take the summer to consider his political future in the Nationals and praised him for playing a “massive, leading role in a policy outcome, as in dumping net zero”.

“What also upsets me is that he and Matt Canavan’s relationship has in the last 24 to 48 hours, been tested, you know, like they’re like brothers, they really are. And you don’t like to see that.”

Canavan challenged Littleproud for the leadership after the election and piled pressure on the party leader to kill the 2050 emissions target. He is also a leading populist-right voice in the Coalition and communicates with the same segment of the electorate being targeted by a surging One Nation party that Joyce could lead in future.

Canavan’s attack lines against Hanson and Joyce this week signify a new-found appetite to target One Nation from the Coalition, which has spent years feuding with the teal independents hoovering up votes in the inner city.

“Where are [Hanson’s] runs on the board?” Canavan said, stressing that he still had respect for the One Nation leader.

“Can Pauline point to a dam, a road, a bridge, a hospital? A change in laws that has helped small business or farmers? I can’t think of any. She’s been around for three decades.”

Canavan said Hanson’s burqa stunt, which he described as offensive to Muslims, distracted from the parliament’s ability to hold Labor to account on energy policy.

Rather than crying over spilt milk, Canavan argued his party needed to muscle up to fill the void left by Joyce, a polarising but charismatic performer who has for many years led conservative arguments on climate change, telecommunications and regional identity.

“I’m not going to lose sleep over Barnaby going. Be the warrior that charges into battle and gets some scalps,” said Canavan, whose colleagues believe still wants to lead the Nationals one day.

“We’ve all got to lift our game. I’ve always been upfront about this: Barnaby would be a big loss to us. It’s next man up now, next woman up, there are great people in our party.”

One MP, who asked to speak anonymously so he could freely discuss internal discussions, said Joyce had not attended the Nationals’ Christmas party in parliament on Tuesday.

“We have all moved on from Barnaby, there are about three people left in the party room who care if he stays or goes. We have dealt with net zero and David [Littleproud] has the support of the party room,” the MP said.

Littleproud, an enemy of Joyce who dumped the former leader from the shadow cabinet after the election, said Joyce wanted time and space and “we’ve given him that to work through where he wants to be”.

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