{"id":434403,"date":"2025-12-09T00:25:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434403\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T00:25:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:25:20","slug":"barnaby-joyces-defection-to-one-nation-the-view-from-his-electorate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/434403\/","title":{"rendered":"Barnaby Joyce’s defection to One Nation \u2014 the view from his electorate"},"content":{"rendered":"

His political career is as colourful as they come in Australian politics: from an affair with a staffer that inspired the Coalition’s infamous “bonk ban”<\/a> to a clash with Hollywood heavyweight Johnny Depp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Barnaby Joyce has retained the affection of voters in his home electorate of New England, which he holds with a very safe margin of 17 per cent.<\/p>\n

As he prepares to spend his final two years representing his constituents under One Nation, after defecting from the Nationals<\/a>, some are still backing him in.<\/p>\n

“I was hoping he’d join [One Nation], because he’s no good where he is,” New England voter Alan Gatgens said.<\/p>\n

“He might do a bit of good there.<\/p>\n

“I like Pauline [Hanson], so if he helps Pauline then he’s helping us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Alan Gatgens supports Mr Joyce’s move away from the Nationals. (ABC New England North West: James Paras)<\/p>\n

New England has been held by Country\/National Party MPs for most of the last 100 years, although former Nationals member Tony Windsor bucked that trend as an independent<\/a> between 2001 and 2013.<\/p>\n

Mr Gatgens said he would not mind if the Nationals lost the seat at the next federal election.<\/p>\n

“They keep fighting amongst themselves, [they’re] no good,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce announced he would join One Nation on Monday.\u00a0 (ABC New England North West: James Paras)<\/p>\n

But Armidale resident Graham Parsons said Mr Joyce should go.<\/p>\n

“As far as I’m concerned, he should resign, step away from it because he was employed as a National Party member,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That’s what the people of New England decided.<\/p>\n

“Effectively, if he’s not going to do the job as required by the community, he should move on and let someone else take up the [mantle] for our community.”<\/p>\n

Listeners to ABC New England today took to the text line to vent their feelings about the move.<\/p>\n

\n

“I have never been a supporter of Barnaby and believe that he should resign\u2026 He is there for himself and not for the betterment of the communities he supports.” \u2014 Tracy from Armidale.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never been a fan of Barnaby Joyce, but this decision to join One Nation will have me vote for Barnaby. So many voters are unhappy with the major parties. Go One Nation.” \u2014 Joanne from Deepwater.<\/p>\n

“Barnaby should resign. He was elected as a National not One Nation. This is the 21st century, the science is very clear\u2026 There are no jobs on a dead planet.” \u2014 John from Kootingal.<\/p>\n

“Barnaby was elected to the New England as a member of the National Party as he is now a member of One Nation. He should resign from being the member for New England and let the voters have a byelection.” \u2014 Phil from Glen Innes.<\/p>\n

“History shows that it doesn’t end well for strong-minded men who end up in Pauline’s party.” \u2014 Bill from Retreat.<\/p>\n

“Barnaby was never happy being just a humble local member and seemed more interested in lobbying for mining interests, often in other states.” \u2014 John from Armidale.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

‘They certainly wanted me out’<\/p>\n

Mr Joyce will remain as the local member for New England until the next federal election, but will now represent One Nation.<\/p>\n

He is then set to stand as that party’s candidate on the NSW Senate ticket.<\/p>\n

Mr Joyce told ABC New England on Monday afternoon that he would “apologise deeply to those who I have hurt” but it was clear his relationship with the leadership of the Nationals “had broken down”.<\/p>\n

“They certainly wanted me out of the building,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You can either close your eyes and just leave the parliament \u2026 or you can say ‘well, to be more effective I have to find a more effective way to do my job for the people of New England’ and that is what I’m doing.<\/p>\n

“I am the member for New England and will remain as such for the next two years \u2026 the people of New England will make their choice as to what they do next.”<\/p>\n

\"McCormack<\/p>\n

Michael McCormack says he expects Barnaby Joyce to clash with Pauline Hanson.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

MP expects ‘clash’<\/p>\n

Former party leader and current Nationals MP Michael McCormack said the search for a new candidate for Mr Joyce’s seat would now begin in earnest.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure we’ll find somebody who will fiercely represent that region for the Nationals as a candidate in the next election,” he said on Monday.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be looking now for that very person.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson visited a cattle saleyard near Tamworth before formally announcing Mr Joyce had joined One Nation. (Supplied: One Nation)<\/p>\n

The member for Riverina said he expected Mr Joyce and Ms Hanson to “butt heads”.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got two very alpha, strong, dominant people who like to lead, who like to be the front person, who like to be the one who’s running the show,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

“They’re going to clash.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His political career is as colourful as they come in Australian politics: from an affair with a staffer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,157446,90,5368,52871,50,162361,56443,80,183786],"class_list":{"0":"post-434403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-barnaby-joyce","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-nationals","12":"tag-new-england","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-one-nation","15":"tag-pauline-hanson","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-tamworth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115686771357465024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}