After weeks of colossal misjudgement over how to handle revelations of an affair with a staff member, and subsequent questions about her employment within the government, Barnaby Joyce has finally bowed to reality and resigned the deputy prime ministership and leadership of the Nationals. His departure, which will be formalised on Monday and which was announced this afternoon at a media conference in Armidale, will bring to an end the crisis that has gripped the federal Coalition since Malcolm Turnbull made clear his lack of confidence in Joyce more than a week ago.
Since then, Joyce has insisted he would be remaining as Deputy Prime Minister, with his parliamentary colleagues seemingly too intimidated to openly call for his departure. That changed yesterday when Victorian MP Andrew Broad called for Joyce’s resignation. Overnight, an allegation relating to sexual harassment against Joyce was reported in the media, although no details have been revealed and the allegation was strongly denied by Joyce.
This week, Joyce appeared to actually seek to keep the story of his affair alive, conducting an interview to attack his critics and the media. Last Friday, he had pumped the story up again by attacking his own Prime Minister, calling Malcolm Turnbull “inept” for his public dressing-down of Joyce the day before.
However, his departure creates a new problem for the Prime Minister, because Joyce is not leaving politics but only moving to the backbench, where he will be free to attack the government and freelance on policy issues in the same way that another former leader, Tony Abbott, has done, inflicting ongoing damage on Turnbull. Joyce also declined to rule out returning to the leadership in the future, in effect placing a question mark over whether any successor would be merely warming the chair for Joyce.
New South Wales MP Michael McCormack and Victorian MP Darren Chester are the two most likely candidates for the leadership on Monday, though NSW MP David Gillespie, currently embroiled in a High Court challenge to his election, has also expressed interest. McCormack is tipped to take the job despite a poor performance in the spotlight in recent days.
Joyce entered politics as a Queensland senator in 2004 and rapidly proved a headache for the Howard government, repeatedly crossing the floor and cultivating an image of a rural populist. His time came when Tony Abbott became leader of the Liberal Party in 2009. As an economically challenged climate denialist and a deeply conservative Catholic with fundamentalist views on abortion and the role of women, Joyce was a perfect match for Abbott, even though the latter was forced to sack Joyce from the finance portfolio in 2010 after repeated errors by Joyce, including the claim that Australia was on the verge of defaulting. Together, they took Australian politics into a new era of populist inanity, particularly on climate change, where each seemed to strive to produce the most absurd claims possible about the Gillard government’s carbon-pricing scheme.
In the 2013 election, when Abbott became Prime Minister, Joyce moved to the House of Representatives to position himself as heir apparent to Nationals leader Warren Truss, who retired in early 2016 several months after Abbott’s ouster. Joyce, having fought Malcolm Turnbull on climate action during the latter’s leadership of the Liberal Party in 2009, never had a strong relationship with the Prime Minister, but the Liberals’ poor performance in the 2016 election compared to the Nationals’ effort strengthened the Nationals’ role in the Coalition.
That result, however, appeared to go to Joyce’s head. In 2017, the citizenship debacle and Joyce’s venomous demotion of Darren Chester in the end-of-year reshuffle illustrated that Joyce’s political judgement was now badly awry. His comprehensive mishandling of the revelation of the breakdown of his marriage and his affair with a former staffer confirmed that a man once touted as the best retail politician in the country was politically toxic to his party and the government of which he was deputy leader.
Now he can join Abbott on the backbench in undermining the government he has already done so much to damage.
Several interesting parts of the mechanism…
Turnbull is in Washington DC. He was asked whether he supported Joyce as Deputy. He would say no more than it is a matter for the Nats. That is true, but Turnbull has been burned repeatedly by Joyce and it was very clear the complete answer was “no”.
A woman in WA has made allegations of sexual harassment against Rubble.
She made the allegation to the National Party. Her lawyer has said she sought to have the matter resolved without publicity. Yeah, so why has she engaged both a lawyer and a media consultant?? Those questions may have good answers…
The National Party has leaked/allowed to be leaked the fact of the allegations. This seems contrary to the interests of its Leader. This unusual way of deciding leadership may have a good explanation…
Barnaby has involved Police, alleging defamation by the leaker of the allegation.
To be defamatory, a publication must be untrue. Barnaby has denied the allegation. Presumably he has good ideas who published the story and who alleged sexual harassment.
National Party candidates for Leadership have announced their campaigns. It appears that they had plenty of time to prepare their announcements, perhaps because they had a hand in the publication of the allegations? A party meeting will hold a vote on Monday.
Anybody want a career in politics? Dual citizens may apply (Turnbull has a form…).
Not sorry to see him go. A clown’s clown, a populist who honed his skills watching Bjelke Petersen, Boris Johnson, and master clown, Donald Trump.
He won’t be missed.
A roundly challenged idiot, who will continue to suck off the high hog of taxpayers for decades. Piss off you hypocrytical piece off rubbish.
Let’s not get carried away – Barnaby is still the member for Gina Rinehart.
But maybe as he is no longer leader he will not have as much influence as before. Maybe he is of less use to her now. Surely Gina doesn’t want a Labor government that BJ as a sniping back bencher a la Abbott, could help see achieved.
Barnaby’s defence was “they love me in Armidale”. And he points to his re-election with an increased margin in early Dec. His party says he need not resign his seat, for the same reason.
His campaign had stressed he was the victim of a complex Constitution. No, he failed his due diligence, despite full warning in the candidates’ handbook. (He is sloppy.)
Barnaby’s defence lists all the goodies he has delivered to New England. First, he is saying pork barrelling is a legitimate way to allocate resources. Second, he illuminates what will happen to New England’s funding now it is not the Deputy PM’s electorate (the pendulum will swing to the other extreme).
This is the work of a great “retail politician”? Bring on the Autumn Sale !
Cate McGregor: “It is the first time a politician has resigned to spend less time with their family”.
If you don’t count Bill Clinton.
He didn’t resign.
barney says the voters love him, hang on, he was the only real candidate,no body else stood, and even fine cotton could win a one horse race, the intimidation the nats put on tony Windsor and his family kept him and every other reasonable candidates out, Tammany hall politics in new England was the real winner, but the voters there are going to be the big losers, when labor wins office there will be no incentive to give new England anything if Joyce and the nats stay on , tony Windsor understood that and stayed very independent and played both parties to the hilt and won great things for his area, Joyce has claimed those wins as his and people actually believed it, barny might be a loser now, but new England will be the biggest loser if they vote him back next election.
bill clinton dodn`t resign, he was found not guilty of illegally using a cigar,
Brian Crooks:
Was the Cigar from CUBA?
I understand that at that time imports from CUBA were considered
Contraband.
barney says the voters love him, hang on, he was the only real candidate,no body else stood, and even fine cotton could win a one horse race, the intimidation the nats put on tony Windsor and his family kept him and every other reasonable candidates out, Tammany hall politics in new England was the real winner, but the voters there are going to be the big losers, when labor wins office there will be no incentive to give new England anything if Joyce and the nats stay on , tony Windsor understood that and stayed very independent and played both parties to the hilt and won great things for his area, Joyce has claimed those wins as his and people actually believed it, barny might be a loser now, but new England will be the biggest loser if they vote him back next election.
This it the problem these types of people their egos are blown out of proportion that they think that they are actually doing a good job. That seems to be where Joyce falls over, he thinks that if he rubs shoulders with all the right people that he can be seen as being the best & an effective politician. Which is interesting, as his efforts from the litany of disasters he’s managed to create over the years seems to have proven the opposite.
The New England is a rather ungrateful electorate… most of the great work done by Tony Windsor has been rebadged by the Nationals as theirs. Just goes to show how much identity politics trumps facts every time. No way can the New England punters sanction any collaboration with the perceived industrial socialist ideology of Labor while completely ignoring the agrarian socialist roots of the Nationals. Workers wages are lower and conditions generally poorer than in the more populated regions. And good jobs hard to come by. Its these same Nats who support the exclusive use of migrant labour in the local abattoir. Barnaby’s main skill was how to tune the right dog whistle to get the Nationals base attentive… downward envy … distrust of others… casual racism …. their ignorance is just as valid as anyone’s intelligence … and look over there while we frack and mine the crap out of our best farmland.
The sad thing about the 457 slaves imported to work on local farms and abattoirs is the fact they dont earn enough to pay much tax, they dont earn enough to spend in the towns, and what ever little they do earn can be seen at the local post office every Friday being sent overseas to their families in their own countries, they are innocently depriving young Australian country kids of jobs while being absolutely of no benefit to the Australian economy, they are virtual economic slaves being exploited for profit, and to top it off Turnbull wants to give these unscrupulous companies massive tax breaks.
Too right Brian.
It’s a wonder your post hasn’t been bombarded with vitriolic replies about what a traitor Windsor was and how he did nothing.
Probably says a bit about the demographic that reads Crikey.
Windsor was a genuine independent and was able to make his position work to deliver real improvements for New England but he wasn’t part of the crony National Party and fellow travellers cabal so he doesn’t get the positive recognition he deserves.
tony windsor is a man of great integrity and decency who truly represented his electorate, a true family man, much too good for the national party, thats why they hate him with a passion and did everything to intimidate and politically destroy him,