While some federal Nationals watched the runaway events in New South Wales on Thursday with bemusement, the former federal leader of the party, Barnaby Joyce, rushed to the defence of John Barilaro for blowing up the state government over koala protection policy.
Joyce, who used the first sitting day of federal parliament in 2020 – a day of bushfire condolences – to launch an unsuccessful leadership tilt against the man who replaced him, Michael McCormack, told the ABC on Thursday afternoon it was time for the Nationals to declare that enough was enough.
Joyce said “none of us wanted koalas to die”. But he said the objections Barilaro had expressed when he telegraphed that his party would not support legislation for the protection of koala habitat related to the protection of property rights.
Joyce said he was “glad they are not folding” because the Liberal party had failed to treat the junior coalition partner with “respect”. He said the Liberals had been given “ample warning” to deal with the internal dispute, so it was the Liberals who were “blowing up their own government”.
“The logical thing is for the premier to understand how important this is and get it off the agenda,” he said.
The protection proposal was a “bureaucratic nightmare” and “bullish, sort of pugnacious, overlordism from Sydney, and we have had enough”.
Joyce also signalled the Nationals in Canberra should adopt similar tactics if thwarted by the Liberals. “If it was the similar situation, absolutely, yes”. He said refusing to back government legislation was a reasonable recourse “if we [were] completely ignored over six months”.
But asked whether he wanted McCormack to run the Nationals in Canberra in a similar style to Barilaro, Joyce demurred, saying he wouldn’t “tell any cook how to make the cake”.
While Joyce applauded the strong-arm tactics, other Nationals in Canberra were shaking their heads. One senior figure said it was impossible for the party to “out Pauline Pauline, or out shoot the Shooters [party]”.
Late on Thursday, the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, gave Barilaro until 9am Friday to reverse his threat to have the Nationals sit on the crossbench. If the threat wasn’t reversed, the premier’s ultimatum was the Nationals needed to resign their ministries.
New South Wales Nationals convened a crisis party room meeting on Thursday night.
