Oh My God, You Need To Watch This Incredibly Awkward Barnaby Joyce Campaign Ad
It absolutely has not aged well.
The Barnaby Joyce affair just keeps rolling on.
Even though the Deputy Prime Minister has made two separate statements today attempting to explain the situation around his relationship with former staffer Vikki Campion, and dismiss allegations of inappropriate behaviour, the momentum against him continues to grow. There are now reports that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is ringing Nationals MPs to gauge how much support there actually is for Joyce.
Things aren’t looking great for the member for New England.
To make matters even worse, a campaign ad produced by the Nationals in support of Joyce’s 2016 election campaign has now resurfaced, and it makes for incredibly awkward viewing in light of the affair:
For context, in 2013 Barnaby Joyce moved from the Senate to the House of Representatives, after successfully contesting the seat of New England. The popular former member, Tony Windsor, had resigned after more than a decade in federal parliament, clearing the way for Joyce.
But in 2016 Windsor decided to throw his hat into the ring again by re-contesting the seat. The election was hard fought, and things got pretty personal, as the ad demonstrates.
The one minute long campaign ad is set in a cafe and features two women talking about upcoming election using a… pretty interesting metaphor.
The ad begins with one of the women receiving a text message from Tony Windsor that says “Hey New England, how about another chance?”.
“Look, it’s Tony again!” she says to her friend.
“Tony Windsor? What does he want?” the friend replies.
“He wants me to take him back,” she answers. “Well, it was ok… for a time… I guess?”
“Yeah, but then he ran off with Julia!” the friend remarks, alluding to Windsor’s political alliance with Julia Gillard between 2010 and 2013.
The ad continues with both women discussing Windsor as though he was in a long-term, committed relationship with a woman in New England who he left for another woman in Canberra.
Sound familiar?
The ad ends with the woman rejecting Windsor’s advances pretty brutally, and then chuckling while the screen displays a message reading “Not this time, Tony.”
It’s actually a pretty clever concept for a political ad, but given the recent controversy around Joyce’s affair it makes for extremely cringey viewing now.