Oh that’s just Barnaby being Barnaby

We’ve all worked with someone like Barnaby Joyce, who thought the rules didn’t apply to them, who had a Teflon-like ability to move seamlessly from one blunder, mistake or lie to the next and still keep his job, writes Belinda Jones.

IF THERE IS NOTHING ELSE, Barnaby Joyce is consistent. Consistently wrong. Constant hypocrite. It is constantly prone to gaffes, mistakes, hypocrisy, inflammatory rhetoric, reversals and changes of policy position. Consistently inconsistent.

This week, New England Member Barnaby’s speech during a live interview was another example of this pattern: completely filled One Nation’s signature housing policy soon turned around and reversed what it had just said. But that’s just Barnaby.

While trying to remove the embarrassment from this incident, Barnaby also revealed that he has an uncanny ability to determine someone’s citizenship status just by looking at them.

Barnaby claimed Australian home buyers were being left out of the property fray at auctions:

“People who look like they just arrived.”

The Oracle, who predicted that roast lamb would be expensive, spoke again $100 If a carbon tax is introduced, it will eventually turn out to be part of a complex Coalition ruse described as: “brutal retail policy” To destabilize the Gillard Government. Again, this is just Barnaby being Barnaby.

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

During the 2017 New England midterm election, IA. Barnaby accepted the offer, becoming the first Australian media outlet to cover Barnaby’s relationship with staff member Vikki Campion. Oversized check for $40,000 from Gina Rinehart There are only two weeks left until the midterm election. He later returned the money after objections. ‘Political rivals and the agricultural industry’. He won the rest of the seat. Barnaby was acting like Barnaby again.

Barnaby appeared on the floor 28 times, the most of any politician in this century. This means he has opposed his own party at least 28 times, although there are other parties as well. examples Rebellion against party policy or leadership.

If past performance is an indicator of future performance, then Joyce is bound to change his mind, to disagree. Pauline Hanson and their One Nation party colleagues. He will push the termite around to take the lead. Of course, he will undermine the party from within and make mistakes and blunders based on his past performance. But that’s just Barnaby.

The media has always loved Barnaby, which perhaps explains his longevity, although many would have been pushed aside for behaving like Barnaby Joyce.

Barnaby constantly delivers soundbites, quotable sound bites, unpredictable interviews and faux originality to the Australian media. The mainstream media must think that Barnaby is at least consistent, if not constantly wrong, hypocritical, and unsure of his stance.

In a world where politicians are media-trained within an inch of their lives to offer talking points in ordinary interview after ordinary interview, each year the media, even some satirists and cartoonists, find Barnaby to be a breath of fresh air in terms of content.

What about the people he represents? Or is it supposed to represent?

Over the past 20-odd years Barnaby has also been consistently inconsistent with them, pledging loyalty to the Nationals and the farmers, then switching to One Nation and one day proudly announcing a new campaign. wind farmLater anti- climate change and net zero. Then backflip and support net zero, convinced $20 billion from the then Prime Minister and an extra seat in the Cabinet Scott Morrisonthen it backflips and opposes net zero again.

Ironically, Morrison later undermined his fifth Cabinet Minister: Keith Pittwhen he took on multiple ministries, but that’s a whole other rabbit hole of the story.

Barnaby chased after him for years Bradfield Diagram The pie in the sky idea is futile. His critical vote This accelerated Telstra’s sale. Although he initially rejected the idea, he was persuaded by a $3 billion infrastructure fund for the bush.

Ultimately, approximately $1.1 billion was spent before the plan was scrapped. The estimated $30 billion sale of Telstra he voted for ultimately netted the government nearly $15 billion and more than 10,000 people lost their jobs.

Barnaby became champion recently abandoned Hugely over budget, Inland Rail is plagued by delays, cost blowouts and a long time from completion.

Barnaby didn’t make a name for himself when it came to women’s issues either. She rejects quotas for women in politics and opposes the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine on the grounds that it could cause young girls to have children. “random“, and I opposed the morning after pill (RU486) because it may promote abortion. Although he was against abortion, he did not offer any concrete opposition to the heavyweights of the National Party. under pressure She demanded that her partner have an abortion in 2017, but called them “scum of the Earth” and did not name them publicly.

Referring to Vikki considering an abortion at the time, Barnaby said:

“I can’t force my views on other people.”

To this day, she continues to campaign to change abortion laws, effectively imposing her views on Australian women.

there was sexual harassment allegations more; An internal National Party investigation has been launched I can’t find anything on that.

And, of course, there are the litany of personal problems, gaffes, drunken outbursts or media interviews and embarrassing incidents that dovetail with Barnaby’s political career. Most memorably, he was filmed drunk and shouting obscenities into his phone on a footpath in Canberra; He later excused it as being an abuser. drug mixture.

No public figure, political or otherwise, male or female, can survive professionally with such extensive blunders, blunders, mistakes, backflips or infidelities towards workplaces and colleagues.

Christine Holgate He was publicly bullied and humiliated for four hours. Julia Gillard He was hounded for years for backflipping on the carbon tax. Jenny Mikakos He resigned due to criticism of his work during COVID. Yassmin Abdel-Magied He was expelled from the country due to a social media post.

Even male politicians and public figures have been ousted or resigned for much less than Barnaby has done over the years. But Barnaby can say or do whatever he wants and face few consequences in any respect.

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

Eventually most people get sick and tired of performance, Sir Les Patterson joketo cover up incompetence, because people like Barnaby mean extra work for their colleagues. Unnecessary work that distracts them from what they need to do. Just like Barnaby’s eccentricities keep him from doing his job.

In Barnaby’s case, One Nation is advised to allocate a portion of the millions in donations they receive from billionaires into a specific damage control fund to deal with the inevitable fallout and damage control needed due to Barnaby being a member of One Nation.

It’s not a matter of if, but when.

It will definitely and definitely be packed again. His colleagues will have to impersonate him, Pauline will have to apologize on his behalf, and Barnaby will have to wait for us all to forgive and forget and say, “Oh, that’s just Barnaby being Barnaby.”

The performance is getting old, the larrikinism is not even remotely entertaining anymore. Last century it is.

At the next election, if he becomes the nominee, at least voters will know exactly what they will get if they vote for Barnaby Joyce; a perpetually inconsistent performer who doesn’t know whether she’s Arthur or Martha when it comes to politics.

That’s just Barnaby.