Oh that's just Barnaby being Barnaby

We’ve all worked with someone like Barnaby Joyce, someone who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, who has a Teflon-like ability to slip seamlessly from one gaffe or mistake or lie to the next and still keep his job, writes Belinda Jones.

IF NOTHING ELSE, Barnaby Joyce is consistent. Consistently wrong. Consistently hypocritical. Consistently prone to gaffes, mistakes, hypocrisy, inflammatory rhetoric, back-flips and policy position changes. Consistently inconsistent.

This week was another example of this pattern when Barnaby, the Member for New England, during a live interview, completely stuffed up One Nation’s signature housing policy, then shortly afterwards returned and backflipped on what he had just said. But that’s just Barnaby.

While trying to hose down the embarrassment over that incident, Barnaby divulged that he also has the uncanny ability to determine someone’s citizenship status just by looking at them.

Barnaby suggested that Australian home buyers at auctions are being knocked out of contention for properties by:

“People who look like they’ve recently arrived.”

The Oracle has spoken again, he who predicted a lamb roast would cost $100 if a carbon tax was introduced, which was eventually revealed to be part of an elaborate Coalition ruse described as “brutal retail politics” to destabilise the Gillard Government. Again, that’s just Barnaby being Barnaby.

Barnaby Joyce first entered Parliament as a National Party Senator for Queensland in 2005, then moved to the House of Representatives in 2013 before being removed from Parliament for being a dual citizen in 2017, and then being re-elected in 2017, 2019, 2022 and May 2025 as a National Party member. Six months after the 2025 Election, Barnaby defected to One Nation.

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Ross Jones went to Tamworth to investigate the many rumours swirling around Barnaby Joyce, for his third story in IA's top ten from 2017 and the second of three in that list on the Deputy Prime Minister.

During the 2017 New England by-election, when IA was the first Australian media outlet to break the story of Barnaby's affair with staffer Vikki Campion, Barnaby accepted an oversized cheque for $40,000 from Gina Rinehart just two weeks out from the by-election. He later handed it back after the outcry from ‘political opponents and the farming industry’. He won the seat back. Barnaby was just being Barnaby again.

Barnaby has crossed the floor 28 times, the most of any politician this century. That means he’s opposed his own party at least 28 times, though there are many other examples of rebellion against party policy or leadership.

If past performance is any indication of future performance, then it is inevitable that Joyce will change his mind, oppose Pauline Hanson and his One Nation party colleagues. He’ll jostle and white ant to get the leadership. He’ll undermine the party from within, he’ll make mistakes and gaffes, going by past performance, of course. But that’s just Barnaby.

The media have always loved Barnaby, which perhaps explains his longevity, when many others would have fallen by the wayside for acting like Barnaby Joyce.

Barnaby constantly gives the Australian media soundbites, quoteable throwaway lines, unpredictable interviews and faux authenticity. Mainstream media must think that even though Barnaby may be regularly wrong, hypocritical and unsure of his position, at least he’s consistent.

In a world of politicians media-trained within an inch of their lives to deliver talking points in banal interview after banal interview, year after year, the media, even some satirists and cartoonists, see Barnaby as a breath of fresh air in terms of their content.

But what about the people he represents? Or is supposed to represent?

The not-so-honourable Barnaby Joyce: A family matter

If Turnbull was unaware of the Joyce affair, how can he also claim to have a "close working relationship" with Coalition colleagues?

For the past 20-odd years, Barnaby has been consistently inconsistent with them too, pledging loyalty to the Nationals and farmers then defecting to One Nation, one day proudly announcing a wind farm, then opposing climate change and net zero. Then backflipping and backing net zero, persuaded by $20 billion and an extra seat in Cabinet from then-PM Scott Morrison, then backflipping and opposing net zero again.

Ironically, Morrison later undermined that fifth Cabinet Minister, Keith Pitt, when he assumed multiple ministries, but that’s a whole other rabbit-hole of a story.

For years, Barnaby chased the Bradfield Scheme pie-in-the-sky idea to no avail. His was the crucial vote that precipitated the sale of Telstra. While initially rejecting the idea, he was persuaded by a $3 billion infrastructure fund for the bush.

In the end, about $1.1 billion was spent before the scheme was abolished. The estimated $30 billion Telstra sale he voted on eventually made about $15 billion for the government and over 10,000 people lost their jobs.

Barnaby championed the recently abandoned Inland Rail, which is wildly over budget, mired in delays, cost blowouts and a long way from being finished.

Barnaby has not covered himself in glory when it comes to women's issues either. He rejects quotas for women in politics, infamously opposed the world's first cervical cancer vaccine because it might make young girls "promiscuous", and opposed the morning-after pill (RU486) because it might encourage abortion. He is against abortion, yet offered no substantive opposition when National Party heavyweights pressured his partner to have an abortion in 2017, other than calling them "scum of the Earth" and failing to publicly name them.

Barnaby said at the time, referring to Vikki contemplating abortion:

"I can't enforce my views on other people."

He continues to campaign to change abortion laws to this day, effectively enforcing his views on Australian women.

There have been sexual harassment allegations too; an internal National Party investigation was unable to make a finding on that one.

And, of course, there is a litany of personal issues, gaffes, drunken outbursts or media interviews and embarrassing events that have juxtaposed Barnaby’s political career. The most memorable was being filmed on a Canberra footpath, drunk and yelling obscenities into his phone, which he later excused as a medication mix-up.

No other public persona, political or otherwise, male or female, could survive professionally with such a comprehensive record of mistakes, gaffes, errors, backflips or disloyalty to their workplace and work colleagues.

Christine Holgate was publicly bullied and humiliated over four watches. Julia Gillard was hounded for years for a backflip on the carbon tax. Jenny Mikakos resigned over criticism of her work during COVID. Yassmin Abdel-Magied was hounded out of the country by a social media post.

Even male politicians and public figures have been sacked or resigned for far less than what Barnaby has done over the years. Yet, Barnaby can say or do whatever he pleases and suffers very little consequence from any quarter.

We’ve all worked with someone like Barnaby, a ‘larrakin’, a ‘rebel’, a ‘maverick’, someone who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, who has a Teflon-like ability to slip seamlessly from one clusterfuck to the next and still keep his job.

Barnaby Joyce defects to One Nation — baggage included

Barnaby Joyce has joined One Nation, continuing a political career defined by betrayal, ambition and self-interest.

Eventually, most people get sick and tired of the performance, the Sir Les Patterson schtick, to cover up the incompetence, because people like Barnaby mean extra work for his colleagues. Unnecessary work that diverts them from what they're supposed to be doing. Just as Barnaby's antics divert him from doing his job.

In Barnaby’s case, One Nation would be well advised to designate some of the millions in donations they’re receiving from billionaires to a specific damage control fund to deal with the inevitable fallout and damage control needed because of Barnaby being a One Nation member.

It's not a case of if, but when.

He’ll stuff up again, for sure and for certain. His colleagues will have to cover for him, Pauline will have to apologise for him and Barnaby will expect us all to forgive and forget and say “Oh, that’s just Barnaby being Barnaby”.

The performance is getting old, the larrikinism is no longer mildly amusing. It’s so last century.

At the next election, if he does stand, then at least voters will know exactly what they’re getting if they vote for Barnaby Joyce — a consistently inconsistent performative representative who, when it comes to policy, doesn’t know whether he’s Arthur or Martha.

That’s just Barnaby.