When we heard news that Barnaby Joyce was quitting the Nationals with a rumored moved to one nation on the cards when you would cover it with our friend in Canberra, Amy Remikis. But the more we talked about it, there was someone else who needed to hear from.
Two Tony Winsor speaking Hello.
Tony Daniel James from seven Am. Barnaby's old sparring partner and the former Member for New England. Tony Windsor was loading cattle when we called and he said a move to one nation would make perfect sense.
Very pleased for him. That is finally found Israel home. You know, the sort of old western Queensland Emperor Marva will suit him with one nation. I think, I think why Barnaby Joyce a going to have difficulty is explaining why he's doing it. Traditionally he hasn't been a racist, and the very existent of one nation is about racism and the condemnation of the various religious groups, et cetera. You find someone to pick on and blame them for all the problems. I just get.
Joyce's decision to quit the Nationals comes after months of speculation and very public declarations of admiration from Pauling Hanson in the media, all culminating with a waggy steak cooked on a sandwich press earlier this week, Tony windsor, when was the last time someone cooked you a prime cut of wag you at Parliament House?
Yeah, I couldn't get over the two years wag steak was absolutely classic. And Joyce historically has always said that he was there to represent the people in the weatherboard and iron, you know they're not so well off, or the poor, and Hanson of course to represent those in the political process that bypassed and anybody that hates anything they could find a place to dwell there. And here they are eating the most expensive place of meat that
you can buy in her office. I couldn't get over the graphics of all of that.
If Joyce Lee flailing nationals for an ascended one nation, is he training another shot at power for a dose of publicity or will it be part of a new conservative force that will reshape the country. I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM today. Contributing editor for The New Daily Amory Meekers on the ramifications of Barnaby bailing on the Nationals. It's Friday, November twenty eight.
So after thirty years with the National Party, I am resigning from the party. That really leads me with a heavy heart, and I apologize for all the hurt that that will cause other people. I really do.
Amy, thanks for joining me. We've known this was coming. But can you lay out for us what reasons Barnaby Joyce gave for his defection.
He didn't really give a lot of concrete reasons. It's really just a vibes because Barnaby Joyce has got everything that he has wanted from the National Party and from the Coalition more broadly. His main argument when he kicked all of this off about five weeks ago was that he really really wanted them to scrap net zero. The reason it.
Is incredibly bad is because what it is doing to our nation, the industrializing our nation, putting the poor into poverty, putting them out of their house, destroying farmland.
They have done that, not just the Nationals but also the Liberal Party. And then it just became more of oh, well, he thinks they're not going far enough to fight for regional people. But he can't really give many concrete examples of what that means, because a lot of the retoric that we have heard from the coalition over the last
couple of months has come straight from Barnaby's mouth. So really this came down to the fact that Barnaby was feeling slighted, that Barnaby Joyce felt like his ascendancy to the National Party leadership was completely cut off and over which it is. So in the end he just basically had a tantrum and quit.
And if we look at his legacy with the Nationals, the decision by then to scrap net zero had Joyce's fingerprints all over it. Would that have happened without him?
No, it wouldn't have happened without him. But I think actual responsibility and the actual dirty fingerprints here belonged to the Labor Party. Labor actually kind of set this all in train when they decided to put up Barnaby Joyce's Private Member's Bill to scrap net zero up for debate, which is something that they did every single week that Parliament sat.
I present the Repeal Net zero Bill twenty twenty five and explanatory memorandum. I move that this bill being now read.
It was with the intent of causing as much internal rock within the Liberal Party and the Coalition more broadly as possible. They wanted to have as many Coalition MPs as they could have the opportunity to stand up there and talk about why they did not agree with the coalition's policy as well.
I always stand by the comments of the Prime Minister. I like some of those opposite, I care never to stand by the commitments of their leader. I mean, yesterday we had the advising example of the Coalition running out of the chamber so they didn't have to vote differently on the net zero.
No labor wanted this, They fostered it. They gave everybody the opportunity to create this situation, and Barnaby Joyce took a lot of glee in that. So he basically did what he does, which is wrecked the place, but also try and claim that he's doing it for the sake of people. This is just the people speaking, and everybody who speaks like mind within the coalition joined him. It became an untenable situation for Susan Lee to try and
pretend that there wasn't a split. To save her leadership for a few more months at least, she agreed to allow the vote, and here we are.
As you mentioned, Amy Joyce is nothing if not while and he's seen the riding on the wall, especially with the Nationals calling for generational change within the Parliamentary party. So do you think they will be celebrating his departure.
I've spoken to quite a few Nationals MPs and they're in two minds about it. There is the point of view that maybe the party room becomes a little bit more settled now that David Little Proud isn't being directly challenged by Barnaby Joyce. But there are still people like Matt Canavan who are in the Nationals party who were very much in the Barnaby Joyce mold of Nationals politicians who are going to continue that line of pushback.
I suppose so support fine zero's dropping off a cliff. I mean, there was a poll this couple of weeks ago show that net zero and has net zero support. It's a big turnaround in just a few months, and I think Barnaby's played a big role in that and pointing out the fact that this net zero promise we're made is not delivering. It's just not working for the Australian people because they've seen there are.
Others who feel that Barnaby Joyce is going to cause more problems for the Nationals outside of the party because he has no rains anymore. He can say whatever he wants and in doing so drag the Nationals further to the right or further to his position, just by sucking up that oxygen and saying why are they not doing this? But then there are others who were just kind of like,
see you later. This has been an absolute mess. The Nationals are losing relevancy in their communities, they are losing members, and Barnaby Joyce is a big reason for that. So they're hoping that maybe they get a bit of a fresh start. But I think looking at the situation, that might be a bit of a naive hopeful view because the Nationals don't seem to be unhooking themselves from Barnaby's positions, despite the fact that he's no longer in the party.
Coming up, If Hanson's and Joyce's powers are combined, how potent the force could one nation become. I mean, let's talk about Barnaby Joyce's values and his record. If you look at how he spent his political energy, what are the issues he really cares about and where does he naturally belong the issues.
That Barnaby Joyce really cares about is Barnaby Joyce. There's no real giant philosophy to Barnaby Joyce's political decisions. He has been against marriage equality, you know, for the sanctity of marriage, despite what he was doing to his own marriage. He has been against privatization and then he's voted for it. He has been for farmers' rights, but then he's put mining ahead of that. He has been for investment, but now he's against net zero. Barnaby Joyce doesn't really have
a position, but he does have excellent rhetoric. He's an accountant who has donned in a kubra and convinced everybody that he is a farmer. And he does a really good job of talking to people as if he is salt of the earth, the weatherboard and iron. That he's only ever talking about regional people and that he understands them, but he only reflects the views of the people who
agree with him. So Barnaby represents Barnaby and in that case, I mean one Nation is probably an okay fit, especially if Pauline Hansen does retire, you know, she is not exactly young, she's tired, she doesn't come to a lot of the parliamentary sittings, and she's enjoying sort of a second career as a conservative darling, speaking at Mara Lago and Seapac conferences around the world. So he would enjoy
one nation if he could lead it. But Barnaby Joyce has always had other people around him who were competent enough to clean up the messes, to keep all of the other responsibilities of running a party going. He's not going to have that in one nation. So it will be interesting to see if Barnaby Joyce can remain Barnaby Joyce if he does end up defecting to one nation as expected, or even if he maintains enough relevancy as an independent.
I mean, let's talk about Barnaby whether he can be Barnaby with one nation.
Do we want him to be Barnaby?
It's a fair question that the same day he shared that now famous steak dinner with Pauline Hanson, Hanson had just been sanctioned for wearing a burker in the Senate. Do you think Barnaby Joyce shares those kind of values.
I don't even know if they are values. I mean, is Barnaby Joyce islamophobic? I don't actually think he's thought about it. I think he looks at things purely on the politics, and he would have rationalized that as a stunt that Pauline Hanson has to do to invigorate her base. Would Barnaby Joyce do something similar? I don't think so. He usually sticks his knives into his colleagues rather into marginalized communities, but that doesn't mean that he's not going
to excuse it. So if he does end up joining one nation, or indeed it just cozies up to them and Pauline Hanson continues doing these sorts of stunts, he would just rationalize them. He certainly wouldn't stand against it.
Now. I think I'm stating the obvious here, Amy, But Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joiss are two very big characters. Let's look into the future. How do you think they would actually go working together?
Well, I mean they did manage to cook a way goos steak on a sandwich press, so obviously they're a match made in heaven. I mean, my favorite thing about that photo op for anyone who hasn't seen it, is that they made sure to put the sax Assault, like the biggest sax Assault container you have ever seen, front and center.
In the the tables everywhere.
Yes, yes, And both of them are very good at the visuals, very good at saying we are just like you. They are both very wealthy people who are very influential, who rub shoulders with some of the most wealthy and elite people in Australia, and both have convinced a large section of the Australian public that they are just every day lower middle class salt of the Earth battlers and so in that, you know, they share a lot of
political I suppose, skill and cunning. Pauline Hanson, though, does not have a good track record of working with other big personalities, Mark Latham being the most recent example of that. Barnaby Joyce has never been comfortable as sharing the spotlight. And while they both at the moment are enjoying the the trouble that they're causing for the wider political scene, actually working together that is going to be something that I think they both struggle with.
I mean, I guess it's easy to pass this off as another Barnaby moment, but it is actually a huge step. This is a man who was once Deputy Prime Minister as a member of the National He's been part of governing the Coalition for many years he's been in power. So is he ultimately giving up any ability to influence policy now?
I don't think he's giving up any ability to influence policy because the Nationals have been influenced by One Nation for about thirty years now. It's one of the reasons the Coalition as a whole has shifted further to the right, because the Nationals have had to shift further to the right to fight off one Nation. But he is, Barnaby Joyce is giving up any chance of a legacy, and by that I mean any chance of a legacy that
seems sent and impactful because one Nation does stunts. One Nation has not been a mainstream party for the thirty or so years it has been in Australian politics. A lot of Barnaby's power has come from being in the mainstream. A lot of his regular TV spots, which is what has seen him elevated into the position that he is culturally in our politics, has been because he is part of a mainstream party. He's probably won't see the same
amount of attention paid to him. Now that he's sitting outside the tent, he'll be brought in from time to time whenever they need, you know, a dose of Barnaby to liven things up. But that's the same way that we see Pauline Hansen used, so he may have actually dealt himself out of some of that relevancy.
And finally, Amy, you know, we know One Nation is already shaping up as a political force individual politics. But how much bigger could they become if Joyce actually ends up joining them? Is there a chance for growth?
I'm not sure that Joyce would appeal to any more people who are currently not already attracted to One Nation, so I don't think you're going to see too much change there. Barnaby Joyce was held back from traveling in the last election, and that is because Barnaby Joyce outside of some of those core electorates. You know, we're talking like Hinkler in Queensland, his own of New England, you know, some in the mid North coast, that sort of area.
Outside of those electorates, here's a net negative. He was seen as bringing down the vote. He does not appeal to women, he does not appeal to younger voters. He does not appeal to anyone who believes in renewable energy as a transition source. There's a lot of negatives that come with Barnaby Joyce. So I think that under Pauline Hanson we'll see one Nation continue to hold that kind of high watermark. But we're also two years out from
the next election. For Labor, year two of a parliament cycle is usually where they do a lot of their action. They just got through the environmental laws. They're starting to ride a little bit higher in the polls themselves, and Anthony Albanzi is certainly doing much better against Susan Lee as preferred prime minister. There's a lot of time for Barnaby Joyce to tank and so there's a lot of time for one Nation to tank with him.
Well, we'll get the popcorn out and see what happens. Amy, Thank you so much for your time.
We all enjoy a little treat at the end of a long parliamentary year.
Also in the news, Labor has passed its environmental laws with support from the Greens. The Green secured some amendments and return for their support, having high risk land clearing, original forest agreements added to federal laws rather than being handled by the states. Colon gas projects will also need federal approval for water use and won't be able to
be fast tracked. We'll have a full report on the new laws tomorrow and Australia is not projected to meet as twenty thirty Climate Target or as twenty thirty five Climate Target climate change when is to Chris Bowen delivered the news in his annual Climate Statement to Parliament, but defended the government, saying it's normal for there to be a gap between targets and emissions and that new policies
will be implemented to improve the result. Australia recently committed to cad emissions by between sixty two and seventy percent by twenty thirty five. The outlook projects emissions were likely for by just forty eight percent. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.