Our Barnaby is a shot of colour in a bland world
Many adjectives have been used to describe Barnaby Joyce since he arrived in politics almost two decades ago, but in truth only two words really do the trick: Barnaby Joyce.
No other politician in the modern Australian landscape is as much his own man and own brand as Barnaby is.
In a sense it is a superpower. The natural laws of politics simply do not apply to him. And yes, it is always Barnaby – not Mr Joyce. That alone should tell you something.
This is a quality the more straightened snobs of the Canberra commentariat struggle to understand. They look down at his bumbling bumpkin persona and sneer at his now trademark gaffes.
Meanwhile, to borrow a line from Bob Carr, Barnaby is still doorknocking in New England trying to find someone who didn’t vote for him.
Carr, in fact, deployed that line about another earthy politician from the New England area, but the point is that truly smart operators recognise the force with which politicians such as Barnaby connect to ordinary people. By contrast, it is always overeducated fools who dismiss them with disdain, only to wonder why they keep winning elections.
A clue to these two schools of thought can be found in the assessments of former prime ministers Tony Abbott, who dubbed Barnaby Joyce the best retail politician in the country, and Malcolm Turnbull, who tried to ban him from having sex.
This brings us of course to Barnaby’s most recent political joust, this time with a planter box in Braddon that appeared to gain the upper hand. At least in the first round.
The upshot was the now viral video of Barnaby on the footpath with legs akimbo muttering into his mobile “dead f---ing c---”.
To my mind it’s a badge of honour that he continued the phone call uninterrupted. Disappointingly, it later emerged these words were not in relation to a political assassination or leadership coup, but rather more sweetly, a drunk man’s self-diagnosis to his wife as he staggered home.
All my friends in media and politics thought it was a hilarious crack of relief in a bleak, dry and angry political window dominated by costof-living pain, tax reform and the ongoing ugliness from Gaza. What else could puncture such a sphere of misery than Barnaby being Barnaby?
But as sure as sunrise, the humourless handwringers had to find a way to tut-tut towards some imagined point of outrage on this receding horizon.
They eventually found it: Why didn’t Prime Minister Anthony Albanese use the same words to describe Barnaby’s late night misadventure as he had to describe former Greens senator Lidia Thorpe’s some nine months ago.
By way of a recap, Albanese classily declined to join the Joyce pile-on, telling Perth radio on Friday: “That’s a matter for Barnaby Joyce to explain. I think that’s a matter for him.”
But, quelle horreur, Albo said the actions of Senator Thorpe were “quite clearly unacceptable”.
There are few straws that escape unclutched in this comparison – let alone pearls – but in truth there needs be only one.
And that is that the total impact and scale of Barnaby’s transgression is he got drunk and fell down.
Whatever profanities ensued were in reference to himself and communicated to his wife.
Thorpe, meanwhile, was banned from a Melbourne strip club for life after reportedly telling patrons they had “stolen her land” and then continuing her tirade outside saying to one man “you’re marked” and to others “you’ve got a small penis”.
Oh, and to be clear, this wasn’t any planned protest against the patriarchy – it was just a good night out at the strippos. Far be it from me to judge the good senator for her recreational choices, but there is a chasm between these two scenarios that Evel Knievel couldn’t span.
Perhaps the penny is now dropping in even the sandiest-headed of the Canberra bubble, but for most of us it has long been clear as a bell. Barnaby abused himself.
Lidia abused other people.
Is that really so hard for supposed political hardheads to get their head around? That getting drunk and abusing people is different to just getting drunk?
I know loads of people in the media and politics with plenty of experience in both. And the Good Lord knows I love a drink myself. And so the preaching and pontificating is nauseating enough, but the equating of merely getting pissed with doing harm to others is not just mindless, it is dangerous. Yet it seems some Canberra smartarses aren’t smart enough to know it.