EXCLUSIVE 🚨 Barnaby Joyce has sent shockwaves through the Nationals by announcing he will resign as former Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader and quit the party entirely to join Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
In a move that has detonated like a drought-breaking storm across rural Australia, Barnaby Joyce, the beetroot-red face of the National Party for two decades, tonight confirmed he is walking away from the party that made him Deputy Prime Minister (twice) and is in advanced negotiations to defect to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
Speaking from his farm outside Tamworth, flanked by a single Australian flag and a very confused kelpie, Joyce delivered a seven-minute video statement that has already been viewed more than 14 million times in under three hours.
“I never thought I’d say this,” he began, voice cracking, “but the National Party is dead. The leadership under David Littleproud has sold out every single value we once fought for.
I cannot stay in a party that no longer stands for the bush, for farmers, for families, or for the Australia I love. I’m sorry, mates. I have to leave.”
He then dropped the bombshell that has left Coalition MPs speechless:
“Pauline Hanson has invited me to join One Nation, and after weeks of soul-searching and prayer, I have decided to accept. One Nation is now the only party that speaks plainly for the people the Nationals have abandoned.”
The quote that will haunt Littleproud forever
Joyce did not hold back on his successor:
“David Littleproud is not someone the Australian people should trust. Full stop.
He signed up to net-zero by 2050, he rolled over on live exports, he let the cities dictate water policy, and he’s happy to watch foreign investors buy up our farmland while young Aussies can’t afford a house deposit. That is not leadership. That is surrender.”
Sources inside the Nationals party room tonight describe “absolute pandemonium”. One senior frontbencher, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “It’s like the captain of the Titanic announcing he’s jumping ship to join the iceberg.”
A courtship six weeks in the making
The defection has not come out of nowhere.
Insiders confirm Joyce and Hanson have been in regular contact since early October, with the pair sharing a wagyu steak dinner at the Imperial Hotel in Tamworth on Sunday 23 November. Witnesses say the conversation lasted four hours and ended with Hanson reportedly saying: “Barnaby, you’re wasted on them.
Come home.”
Hanson herself went live on Facebook at 9:15 p.m., barely containing her glee:
“Barnaby Joyce is a true fighter for rural Australia. The Nationals threw him under a tractor. One Nation will give him the platform he deserves. And yes – when I decide to retire, I can’t think of anyone better to take the reins.”
That last sentence has sent shockwaves through One Nation’s existing Senate team, with Malcolm Roberts reportedly “ropeable” at the prospect of being overshadowed by the loudest voice in Australian politics.
A political earthquake with aftershocks already being felt
The implications are enormous:
New England by-election: Joyce has confirmed he will vacate his lower-house seat “within weeks”, triggering a by-election in one of the safest conservative seats in the country.
One Nation is expected to run Joyce’s son-in-law or a local farmer, potentially delivering the seat to Hanson’s party and costing the Coalition its already razor-thin numbers. Senate ambitions: Joyce is eyeing a top spot on One Nation’s 2028 Senate ticket in NSW or Queensland.
With his personal vote and name recognition, he is almost guaranteed election – and possibly the balance of power. Coalition collapse: The Nationals now face an existential crisis.
Already reduced to just 14 lower-house seats after the 2025 landslide, losing their most recognisable figure to a rival party could trigger further defections. Western Australian Nationals are reportedly “in meltdown”.
Labor’s dream scenario: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Perth tonight, could barely hide his smile: “The Coalition is eating itself alive. Australians wanted stability. They’re getting a circus.” The man who once moved the Murray-Darling
For older Australians, the images are surreal: the same Barnaby Joyce who once brought a lump of coal into Parliament, who cried on national television over his marriage breakdown, who famously warned that “Sydney and Melbourne are full” – now preparing to sit alongside Pauline Hanson, the woman he once dismissed as “a fish-and-chip-shop lady with extremist views”.
Yet rural voters appear split rather than shocked. Early text-message polling by Sky News regional shows 41 % of New England voters saying they would follow Joyce to One Nation, with only 29 % saying they feel “betrayed”.
One local grazier told 7News outside the Tamworth sale yards tonight: “Barnaby’s always been a loose cannon, but at least he’s our loose cannon. Littleproud’s never set foot on a drought-stricken property in his life.”
What happens next? Joyce will formally resign from the Nationals tomorrow morning. He is expected to make his first joint appearance with Hanson at the Inverell Showground this Saturday. Bookmakers have already slashed odds on One Nation winning six Senate seats at the next election.
David Littleproud has called an emergency Nationals party-room meeting for 7 a.m. Monday – widely expected to be one of the most toxic in the party’s 105-year history.
As the sun set over the Liverpool Plains tonight, Barnaby Joyce stood on his verandah, cracked open a XXXX Gold, and told waiting journalists:
“I didn’t leave the Nationals. The Nationals left me.”
Whether history judges this as the final nail in the Coalition’s coffin or the rebirth of a genuine rural protest movement, one thing is certain: Australian politics just got a whole lot louder, a whole lot redder, and a whole lot more unpredictable.
