Picture Barnaby Joyce: ruddy-faced and sweat-sheened, akubra tilted at that carefully calculated angle, voice booming across the electorate like a cattle auctioneer who’s discovered amplification. Watch the performance unfold. Every rolled ‘r,’ every folded arm across the barrel chest, every indignant splutter calibrated to convince rural Australia that this Riverview-educated accountant, this bloke who paid more for Pilliga ‘mongrel country’ than most farmers earn in a decade, is somehow their champion.
Now, as he shuffles towards the exit; eyeing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation like a desperate actor auditioning for community theatre; the question isn’t whether he might defect, it’s why he hasn’t already pissed off entirely and made way for genuine leadership in rural Australia.
Born with a Silver Spoon, Performed with a Tin Mug
Joyce grew up comfortable. Not Packer comfortable, but comfortable enough: family sheep and cattle property, successful enough to send him and his brothers to Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview. That’s one of Sydney’s most exclusive Jesuit schools, where current fees nudge $27,000 a year before you even think about boarding costs. His rugby-playing, North Shore education couldn’t be more removed from the archetypal Australian bush battler he so relentlessly performs.
Yet from this vantage point of private school privilege, he constructed a persona: the hat-wearing, twang-talking ‘boy from the bush’; designed not just to resonate with rural stereotypes but to capitalise on them for political gain. The accountant became the actor. Rural Australia became his stage. And for two decades, he’s been playing the same tired character to diminishing applause.
The truth is simpler and less flattering. This isn’t the boy from the bush. This is the tin-arse of self-interest from central casting, lucky beyond measure and entirely convinced he’s earned every break that landed in his lap.
The Darker Shadows Nobody Wants to Mention
Then there are the scandals. Joyce’s political career carries the sour stench of impropriety that won’t quite wash off, no matter how many times he scrubs up for the cameras.
Start with the women. Catherine Marriott: former West Australian Rural Woman of the Year, respected agriculture businesswoman; made a formal complaint to the National Party in February 2018 alleging sexual harassment and sexual misconduct by Joyce dating back to a 2016 incident in Canberra. She’d kept quiet at the time, terrified of taking on ‘a little human against a big system’ when Joyce was a popular Agriculture Minister. When she finally lodged her confidential complaint, the National Party leaked her name to News Corp; which she described as ‘horrific’; then conducted an eight-month investigation that concluded it was ‘unable to make a determination’ due to insufficient evidence.
The report remains confidential. Marriott’s identity does not.
There’s another unresolved sexual harassment allegation, this one from 2011. Joyce denies them all, calls them ‘spurious and defamatory,’ asks for police referrals that never materialise. The pattern is unmistakable: complaints made, complaints buried, career rolling on. When Joyce resigned as Nationals leader in 2018, he cited these allegations as ‘the final straw’; but three years later, nothing resolved, he was back in the job as if the whole messy business had never happened.
Meanwhile, his 24-year marriage to Natalie ended: spectacularly, publicly, humiliatingly; after his affair with former staffer Vikki Campion became front-page fodder. Natalie didn’t retreat into bitterness. She hit the gym. Within 18 months, the woman he’d left for a younger staffer was competing in bodybuilding competitions, arms carved with muscle, shoulders squared with confidence, medals accumulating. The tabloids called it a ‘revenge body,’ but Natalie rejected that interpretation: it was about reclaiming herself, she said, refusing to let someone else’s appalling behaviour derail her life. While Joyce performed contrition on Sunday Night television for a reported $150,000 payday, Natalie was transforming grief into power. The contrast couldn’t be starker: his currency was scandal and performance; hers was quiet, muscular dignity.
The $80 Million Water Heist
Joyce’s voting record tells a different story from the battler-defending rhetoric. Take the $80 million ‘Watergate’ scandal: a masterclass in creative accounting from someone who actually trained as an accountant.
As Water Minister, Joyce approved the purchase of water rights from Eastern Australia Agriculture, a company domiciled in the Cayman Islands (because nothing says ‘Australian values’ like Caribbean tax havens) where his colleague Angus Taylor had been a director. The water? Unreliable overland flow that valuers called essentially worthless when separated from land; the kind other ‘harvesters’ could simply take once it left the property.
The price? Fifty-seven times higher than an earlier valuation the department had rejected.
That’s not a typo. Fifty-seven times.
Documents revealed the department had access to a valuation of just $1.4 million for these same water holdings. Nearby similar water had sold for a third of the price. But Joyce’s department determined this particular water; Taylor’s water; deserved a record $80 million premium. The company booked a $52 million instant profit, the money flowed north to the Caymans, and Joyce insisted he’d had no idea about any of it.
The accountant who couldn’t account for where $80 million went. Someone should ask questions. Oh wait: they did. Nothing happened.
Pilliga: The Land Deal That Defies Agricultural Logic
In 2006 and 2008, Joyce purchased roughly 1,000 hectares in the Pilliga: land locals cheerfully describe as ‘mongrel country,’ ‘heartbreak country,’ and just plain ‘shit.’ For more than half a million dollars, Joyce acquired acreage that couldn’t support enough livestock to turn a profit, earth so scalded and unforgiving that veteran farmers wondered how you’d make fifty bucks from it beyond harvesting feral goats.
His explanation? He wanted to experiment with wheat farming on ground where wheat had no business growing. He ‘came from the land’ and wanted to ‘go back to the land after politics.’
Touching, really.
By extraordinary coincidence, coal seam gas deposits lay beneath. By further coincidence, his close friend and former Nationals leader John Anderson became chairman of Eastern Star Gas in 2007: a company with exploration licences over Joyce’s property; just one year after Joyce’s first purchase. Joyce claims total ignorance of the gas reserves, though local farmers recall him discussing the matter at petrol stations around 2009. When a neighbour mentioned drilling plans, Joyce was reportedly shocked. Shocked.
The land sits still, stubbornly refusing to grow profitable crops, dust devils spinning across the empty paddocks, patiently awaiting either gas rigs or the Inland Rail project that might require compulsory acquisition at a handsome price. As Infrastructure Minister, Joyce diverted a railway project to pass by other land he owned, dramatically increasing its value. Pattern recognition isn’t complicated.
Gina: The Friendship That Keeps on Giving
Then there’s Gina. Ah, Gina.
The mining magnate and Joyce have enjoyed a relationship so cosy it would make a registered lobbyist blush. She flew him to Indian weddings on her dime: $2,000 in taxpayer funds for the return leg from Kuala Lumpur notwithstanding. At a gala dinner she organised, she pressed a $40,000 cheque into his hands for being a ‘champion of farming’; which he accepted with all the shocked humility of someone who knew exactly what was coming, before returning it only after public outrage made keeping it politically impossible.
Somehow: quite coincidentally, one imagines; a mobile phone tower Joyce campaigned for ended up on her property, generating annual fees. The tower’s plagued with reception problems; locals still can’t get a signal; but the income stream works just fine.
When Joyce publicly defended Rinehart, calling criticism of her ‘disgusting’ and declaring Australia needed ’20 more’ billionaires like her, one could almost hear the clink of champagne glasses echoing from the Australian War Memorial where he delivered his stirring tribute. He’d lobbied Prime Minister Turnbull to support Rinehart’s National Agriculture Day, then wrote to her boasting about his role; all before she presented him with that $40,000 prize.
It’s a friendship built on mutual admiration: she admires his political influence, and he admires her… philanthropic spirit. How fortunate that their interests so often align.
The Great One Nation Escape
And now, the final act: Barnaby eyes One Nation, Pauline Hanson’s political retirement home for the terminally ambitious and chronically unemployable.
It’s the perfect match, really: a party that bears someone else’s name, runs on grievance and nostalgia, and will expire the moment its founder does. For a bloke who’s spent decades building a personal brand as the bushie’s battler, joining a personality cult led by another egomaniac is either peak irony or simple admission that it was always about Barnaby, never about the bush.
The signs have been flashing like a roadhouse beer sign for months. Joyce announced he won’t stand for his seat of New England at the next election. His relationship with the Nationals leadership has, in his words, ‘irreparably broken down’; which is politician-speak for ‘they finally noticed I’m a liability.’ He’s quit attending party room meetings, done attending Nationals functions, finished with the pretence of party unity.
Reports indicate he’s in ‘advanced talks’ with Hanson, who’d be ‘happy to have him.’ The chair of the Nationals’ Tamworth branch: in Joyce’s own electorate; just defected to One Nation, taking most of the branch with him, declaring the party ‘does not adequately represent NSW regional and rural voters anymore.’ One Nation’s support has more than doubled since the May election, siphoning votes from both major parties in regional seats.
This isn’t a defection. It’s a retreat dressed up as revolution. The slow unravelling of a political landscape propped up by deep electoral gerrymanders and outdated allegiances; not genuine democratic mandate. Joyce’s departure is less a loss and more a symptom of a party and a political style whose time has passed, if it ever truly arrived.
Time to Go
Retirement isn’t humility: it’s arithmetic.
Joyce’s political capital is spent, his scandals are stale, his act is tired. The $80 million water heist, the Pilliga land grab, the Gina connection, the unresolved sexual harassment complaints that the National Party couldn’t be bothered investigating properly: these aren’t isolated incidents. They’re the pattern of a career built on caricature and controversy that ultimately failed its constituents while enriching its protagonist.
Rural Australia doesn’t need another performance artist in an akubra. It doesn’t need someone who’ll sell water to Cayman Islands companies, purchase worthless land over gas deposits, or accept cheques from mining magnates at gala dinners. It needs representatives who embody authenticity, competence, and integrity; not someone who treats the electorate like an audience to be manipulated and elite mates like clients to be serviced.
The curtain is falling, Barnaby. For once in your career, read the room and walk off stage with something resembling grace.
The call for your retirement isn’t punishment: it’s recognition. Recognition that the act has run its course, the audience has left, and the only people still watching are those who profit from the performance. Rural Australians deserve better than a worn-out tin-arsed bastard playing out a panto script for Pauline Hanson’s benefit. They deserve leadership capable of real change, not another round of theatrical bullshit from someone whose only consistent principle has been self-interest.
The stage is open. Just leave.
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An accurate and stinging characterisation David.We will all be so relieved if he just fucks right off.
Another National embarrassment who will not be missed..by anybody.
David Tyler, a good summary of a rogue’s progress
If, as he says, Barnaby will not be nominating to retain his New England seat we need to delve into the Machiavellian dealings of Barney and his crew.
I can’t help noticing that the newly elected NSW One Nation senator Warwick Stacey has resigned from the Senate, citing “personal health issues”. He was only elected in May and has been replaced by One Nation staffer Sean bell but he may well be a seat filler to hold the senate seat with the prospect of resigning once Barnaby has quit the National Party, walked away from New England and joined One Nation : the prospects of him being elected to a new seat in his own right being remote, Pauline my very well gift him this Senate seat to give her party “retail appeal”.
This is the problem with back-benchers in opposition, that they have little to do beyond scheming – what is it they say about idle hands :
“idle hands are the devil’s workshop”
Joyce announced he won’t stand for his seat of New England at the next election.
He said he won’t stand there for the Nationals. Unfortunately, the locals would probably still elect him even if he ran under a Greens banner.
Long past time to go Barnaby! It’s not like you will be relying on the old age pension to survive beyond the parliamentary trough that you have had your snout in for years.
The Pilliga might well be characterised by the farming community as ‘mongrel country,’ but let’s not overlook the fact that, at ~5,000 sq km, it is the largest remaining section of semi-arid woodland in temperate north-central NSW, and as such is home to many species of native fauna, some of them endangered, as well as having its own unique flora.
Farmers, by and large, never see a tree that they wouldn’t like to chop down, or a tract of land that they wouldn’t like to stock with sheep or cattle. If Joyce had his way, he’d be in there with the D7’s quicker than you can say ‘nice hat ya got there, Joycey.’
Terry, Thanks — yes, it does have the whiff of a carefully stage-managed exit. A conveniently vacated One Nation seat, a loyal placeholder, and Barnaby poised for yet another resurrection tour. Opposition backbench life leaves too much time for intrigue, and “idle hands” rarely stay that way in Canberra. Whether Pauline’s really gifting him a Senate sinecure or just borrowing his notoriety for a few news cycles, it’s classic Barnaby — forever finding a way back into the frame, if not the fray.
Also reflects the demographic divide in Oz, like elsewhere.
Not just bush or regions vs urban, but a unique time with ageing electorates means it’s more monocultural retirees vs more educated and diverse working age.
The latter, via imported US ideology, are presented as an existential threat by our RW MSM, but the former are becomingly increasingly irrelevant?
Wilson Tuckey and I could never be besties, but he was right about one thing, as that was that Barnaby Joyce didn’t put his brain into gear before going to Canberra in 2005. For a man who doesn’t put his brain into gear, it’s a case of it takes one to know one. Barnaby Joyce has never put his brain into gear because he’s killed too many cells with hit and miss.
Leefe, I heard Barnaby on 7.30 with Sarah Ferguson ; he said that “I will not be standing for New England again but will complete my term as promised at the last election.”
In another interview he said the he would not be contesting the seat of New England at the next election.
The thing that Sarah Ferguson should have asked was, is he exiting politics at the next election AND having said that he has not [yet] resigned from the National Party, when, if at all, does he intend to do that.
Whatever the case surely, we can now see that Joyce is not fit for public office, he can neither think nor act rationally.
How can you not want this guy to continue and branch out? America has Trump, a great buffoon who ensures America remains the comedy capital of the world. Australia needs a troupe that can at least play a supporting role on the world comedy stage. Imagine, Barney, Pawline, & Jacinta, all teaming up together and marching under the same “One Divided Nation” political banner. There is absolute gold just waiting to be mined. Everything is far too serious these days. we need to lighten up and let these mugs entertain as as they were always meant to do.
A fine article describing the adulterous, alcoholic, bigoted, corrupt, deceptive, egomaniac, fornicator, sexually harassing, misogynist who began his political career as Queensland Senator in 2004, was kept out of HoR Maranoa electorate by the previous MP delaying their retirement by another term, then dropping into New England in 2013 with the sudden & unexpected retirement of Tony Windsor INDEPENDENT.
As an active political commentator domiciled in the New England electorate allow me to add my two cents worth.
Leefe: There will be no run in the HoR because Beetrooter recognises that the financial power of the now much diminished NOtional$ Branch (a reported eight (8) defections would almost leave the branch without a quorum) would outweigh any fund raising the would support Beetrooter the Independent politician.
Think age 58 (or 55 depending upon report) another seven (7) years in the Senate with free access to the members bar would take him to the usual 65 years retirement age …. and a further inflated Retirement Allowance and more Superannuation contributions.’
NOT STANDING FOR RE-ELECTRION: This suggests that Beetrooter has been retired to the long paddock to contemplate his Pilliga Scrub ”grazing property” and the financial benefits that flow from the reported CSG deposits below it plus enjoying his second family growing up.
His recent track record leaves much to be desired. In 2013 Windsor achieved feral Budget funding for the Tenterfield CBD By Pass, that RAbbott slashed from the budget bewfore the 2013 election while Beetrooter was reported as laughing. Now 12 years later (in 2025) Beetrooter has done NOTHING to replace that lost funding.
However, around the saleyards the word is a little different. A long standing former NOtional$ MP has a married daughter with a spouse who requires a job best suited to his ”talents” of looking after foreign owned multinational horticultural corporations capable of making ”political donations” to the NOtional$. The spouse is currently ”in training” in local government where his ”good ideas” ignore the best interests of the ratepayers and have bad long term consequences that are rejected by the community. He is being trained by a General Manager parachuted into the job by a former Minister for Local Government who has recently been re-appointed to the job by the sole person selection committee. Guess who??
Regardless, the NOtional$ have some political favours to return that have been called in, and the pre-selection decision seems to have been made by honouring those commitments.
Canguro: The Pilliga Scrub block has been accurately described above. The most important fact is that the Pilliga Scrub is the major source of re-filling water for the Great Artesian Basin that provides groundwater for much of western NSW and Victorian agriculture.
CSG contamination makes this water source unusable for agriculture. So once the capping strata has been ruptured and CSG leaks into the water beds, Australian agriculture will have a major disaster om its hands.
“This isn’t the boy from the bush. This is the tin-arse of self-interest from central casting, lucky beyond measure and entirely convinced he’s earned every break that landed in his lap.”
I would say that description fits most of the 2PP incumbents right now.
The following article sums it up nicely….
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/10/australias-political-parties-are-moving-to-their-use-by-date/?
Everyone knows Barnyard is a shyster. It’s just what the lineage of perennial bogan ignoramus haters endemic to New England towns want. A shyster that can vent their swollen spleens by sticking it to those privileged shiny-arses in the capital cities.
And wow, in Barnyard they got a shyster accountant to boot.
In their lives of jealousy and vengeful ignorance they failed to notice Barnyard was helping only himself, and taking the piss out of them the whole time.
His almost incoherent ramblings on this morning’s TV clearly indicated he has passed the pub test in more ways than one, and is LONG past ”his use by date”, if indeed he ever had one. Don’t let the batwing doors hit you on the ass on you way out.
Andrew Smith: Spot on. We’re living through a demographic seesaw: ageing monocultural electorates clinging to legacy narratives, while younger, more diverse cohorts are framed as ideological invaders. The irony? Those painted as threats are actually the ones keeping the civic engine running; teaching, caregiving, innovating. Meanwhile, RW media recycles US-style culture war tropes to mask the real shift: relevance is migrating, and fear is its shadow. The future isn’t hostile; it’s just multilingual, intersectional, and inconveniently awake.
It does make me wonder that when, not if, he defects to the Putrid Horrid Onerous Nut party will the voters remove him or
https://static1.bigstockphoto.com/9/7/2/large1500/279544270.jpg
Blistering. Thank you:)
I’m with Fiona – a brilliant after-party takedown, thank you.