Uh Oh, It Looks Like Barnaby Joyce Wants His Old Job Back

We regret to inform you that Barnaby Joyce appears to be trying for a comeback. There have been increasing whispers suggesting that he wants his old job as Nationals leader back, because what this country really needs right now is another leadership spill.

It’s been 237 days since Joyce resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader (time really flies in Australian politics, hey?), and a brief survey of everything that’s happened in that time reveals absolutely no good reasons for him to be making a return. I mean, he resigned in the first place after having an affair with his former staffer, facing an allegation of sexual harassment as well as questions about whether he had misused taxpayer dollars.

Since then, he’s taken 11 weeks of leave to process the ordeal, accepted $150,000 for a TV interview about the whole thing, published a book that nobody read, and said more dumb shit at every opportunity. Read the room, dude — no one wants you back.

At last check, Barnaby Joyce's nauseating, self-serving memoir had sold less than 2000 copies. Read the fucken room matehttps://t.co/7vcAXSdnsV

— Marieke Hardy (@mariekehardy) October 17, 2018

And yet, yesterday Joyce said that if he was somehow “offered” the leadership, he’d take it. “If it came up, and it was offered to me, I would take it, but I am not touting for it, I am not collecting the numbers for it,” he said. Make no mistake, this is absolutely Barnaby’s way of saying he wants his old job back.

And look, if I was offered a high paying job or like a million bucks or something I would also take it, but that’s not the point — no one should be offering Barnaby the Nationals leadership, because it’s not vacant. The current Nationals leader is Michael McCormack, and he’s currently desperately trying to remind people that he is, in fact, doing his job.

“The fact is I have the majority support in the National party and the fact is I have to say not one National party member has come to me and said they’re dissatisfied with anything,” McCormack said this morning. He then ruined it by adding that “they come to me in a conga line asking for infrastructure projects”, which is an image I really can’t unsee.

Unfortunately, McCormack isn’t the only one insisting that everything is fine, which is the surest sign that things are not, in fact, fine. Even Scott Morrison has weighed in to say that the “the coalition between the Nationals and the Liberals has never been stronger” and that will continue to work with McCormack both enthusiastically and passionately.

So, are we set for another leadership spill in 2018? Time will tell, but on behalf of the Australian people, let me say this: please god no.