Barnaby Joyce is expected to formally resign from the Nationals and announce his move to One Nation in a 90-second statement in the House of Representatives around 1.30pm.
Joyce told this masthead yesterday he would have “more to say” on Thursday.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
On Thursday morning, two of Joyce’s political allies, speaking anonymously to this masthead, confirmed Joyce would make his announcement later today.
This masthead revealed Joyce was in talks with One Nation early last month.
Nationals allies including Michael McCormack and Matt Canavan, a friend and former staffer for Joyce, have been urging the former leader of the party to stay in the tent.
But Joyce’s Monday night steak dinner with Hanson was viewed as near-confirmation he is quitting, prompting Canavan to flick the switch to campaigning against an old ally and boss who would become a political enemy and cannibalise the already-depressed Coalition vote.
Former leadership rival McCormack spent an hour with Joyce in Parliament House’s Aussies cafe on Wednesday, making the case for Joyce to stay in the Nationals “for a number of reasons”.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson talk over a dinner of pasta, salad and steak in Hanson’s office on Monday night.
“I think he owes it to himself, he owes it to his legacy, he owes it to those regional people who put him here, and he owes it to the party which gave him the great privilege of making him deputy prime minister, not once, but as he reminded me, three times,” McCormack said on Wednesday.
