I take it all back. Barnaby is a fool, after all

December 10, 2025 — 1.21pm

I have long defended Barnaby Joyce as one of the smartest strategists in conservative politics. I disagreed with him on almost every subject, but respected the skill.

Although sometimes laboured and more than a little dramatic, Joyce has always been the sort of operator who had the next 17 moves mapped out before anyone else even realised a game was being played. Whatever else people said about him, he was never politically dumb.

Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce in Tamworth for the announcement of his defection on Sunday.Credit: Andrew Pearson

But this move – joining One Nation – is really dumb. Just gobsmackingly stupid. An utterly idiotic, selfish, indulgent, entitled act of self-immolation that will forever trash his political future and erase any potential legacy.

And it will really hurt New England, the federal electorate he still represents.

If Barnaby Joyce genuinely believes our community in New England is going to follow him into Pauline Hanson’s chaotic circus, he has completely misread the room. New Englanders are not small-minded bigots easily seduced by simplistic populist rhetoric. They are good, solid country people with a deep sense of fairness, community and decency. For Joyce to assume they’ll march behind him into a party defined by grievance, fear, conspiracy and manufactured outrage – not to mention a more-than-casual disregard for the truth and those pesky facts – is an insult to the electorate he claims to serve.

Loading

If he thinks his friends will stick with him, he is going to get a rude shock. This isn’t like a divorce where friends quietly pick sides and a few attempt to straddle the middle. Joyce hasn’t just left the Nationals: he’s jilted every National Party member, voter and supporter who has worked to get him where he is. He’s walked out on the very people who built his career, protected him at his lowest moments and tolerated the chaos that came bundled with him.

If he thinks he can get anything at all for New England while sitting as a One Nation MP until the next election in 2028, then he really is a fool. No part of the public service, no minister, no anything, will be handing out grants or spending to projects in New England for fear that it may be seen as being supportive of the hateful views of One Nation. Watch now as funding for everything from the New England Highway to major tourism projects suddenly is under review, put on hold, delayed and otherwise stymied.

The social cost to Joyce personally will be enormous. How long will he be able to tolerate being avoided in the street, the pub, the grocery store, the footy? How long before the isolation cracks him and he quietly escapes to the city or Queensland, somewhere that has enough One Nation sympathisers willing to be seen with him so he doesn’t have a daily reminder of how badly he’s screwed up?

The social cost to our community will be even bigger. If you thought Walcha was divided over renewables (which Joyce is significantly responsible for), wait until that level of animosity, mate against mate, neighbour against neighbour, consumes all our communities.

Loading

The bluster and lies of One Nation are easily brushed off by New Englanders, who will not look past the racism and bigotry to believe the rainbows-and-lollipops promises of a party that will never, ever be a party of government. But the personal loyalty will tug hard for some, and the discord created between those loyal to the man and those loyal to the party will not heal easily nor quickly.

And if he thinks Pauline Hanson is going to hand him the reins of her creation, he is delusional. Hanson will never let anyone else control her party until you pry it out of her cold dead fingers. And she’ll more than likely destroy the party on the way out.

Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, one thing has always been undeniable: Barnaby Joyce has never, until now, been a fool.

And yet, here we are. I was wrong. I was 200 per cent sure there was no chance that the politically savvy, sharp-witted campaigner Barnaby Joyce would ever commit political suicide. Maybe he has a plan. Maybe this is 17-dimensional chess.

Loading

But if the rationale behind this move is that New England is about to reveal itself as a haven for white-trash rednecks who think it’s fine for men to beat their families and still access their kids, or for people to hurl racist, bigoted, hateful abuse at others without consequence, or any of the other social atrocities that Hanson has actively supported and defended, then I’m leaving. Because that is not the New England I know and love.

And it’s not the New England Barnaby Joyce is supposed to be fighting for either.

RK Crosby is chief executive of research and strategy company KORE CSR and a former strategist for the Australian Democrats. She is publisher of the New England Times, where this article was first published, and the North Coast Times. (She also has a PHD in voter behaviour.)

Most Viewed in Politics

Loading