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Barnaby Joyce's political career has now gone full circle. He started out as an unlikely maverick senator from Queensland, elected when the Howard government secured four of the six senate seats in Joyce's home state at the 2004 election. In time he rose to become Nationals leader and deputy PM, before controversies struck and he lost the leadership, frontbench duties... and now sits as a backbench maverick once again. Having moved to the NSW lower house electorate of New England as part of his ambitious bid to become deputy PM, Joyce has now declared that he won't recontest his seat at the next election, nor sit in the Nationals' party room in the meantime, saying that his relationship with the leadership has 'irreparably broken down'. That's not quite a formal crossbench shift, but it's a very public walk out all the same. After two decades in parliament, Joyce's career has come full circle. He's back to where he started: loud, contrarian and off message. When Joyce first arrived in Canberra he wore the maverick tag like a RM Williams belt buckle. He threatened to cross the floor early and often, and then actually did it, 19 times under John Howard's prime ministership, and 28 during his Senate career. Joyce at times became a one man negotiating caucus. The branding worked. It made him famous, and it made him useful. Then he stopped being a rebel and became part of the political establishment. Twice leader of the Nationals. Twice Deputy Prime Minister. The maverick persona remained, but the maverick behaviour was only for the cameras. He became a team player. But then the barnacles started to build. Personal controversies did real damage, for him, and, arguably, the Coalition too. The Vikki Campion affair culminated in Malcolm Turnbull rewriting the ministerial code to ban relationships between ministers and staffers. Joyce was especially aggrieved by the way he was treated at that time. Years later, the late night footpath episode - broken by the Daily Mail - was explained away as a 'big mistake' after mixing prescription medication with alcohol. The footage turned him into a punchline for many. Yet Joyce survived both controversies and others, continuing to serve, albeit with declining cachet. Which brings us to the current reboot. Joyce has reverted to the maverick persona that kicked off his political career. He wants net zero gone, root and branch, and even drafted a private member's bill to repeal the 2050 commitment, which he labelled a 'lunatic crusade'. He's also said that One Nation is 'not barking mad' on climate, and is flirting with a defection to the minor party. As of now, he refuses to sit in a Nationals party room that won't junk net zero. This is vintage Barnaby: pick a fight, draw a line and dare colleagues to cross it. The difference is that this time he's fighting his own party, not prodding a Liberal prime minister from the Senate backbench. The move by Joyce probably hurts the Nationals more than it helps them. David Littleproud insists he wants Joyce to stay, but the real issue isn't whether Barnaby dozes off in party room meetings, it's whether the party still knows what it stands for beyond a rolling argument about climate policy. Joyce isn't simply dissenting on tactics, he's rejecting the destination the Coalition might be heading. He has confirmed conversations with Pauline Hanson. For her part, Pauline has flatly denied any talk of Barnaby leading her outfit. Could Joyce actually fit in as a future One Nation senator and possible future leader? Possibly. He still has a draw, especially with voters who long ago lost interest in centrist major party politics. Joyce is also younger than many assume. At 58 years of age he's much younger than Hanson, who at 71 is 13 years his senior. But parties built around personalities can be jealous places. Two suns cannot occupy the same sky. Barnaby's mid-career political crisis hasn't happened in a vacuum. The Nationals' identity crisis, folded into the Coalition's broader confusions, has contributed to the return of Joyce the maverick. If you treat someone like a relic for long enough, they start behaving like the old version of themselves. Joyce has returned to the posture that made him famous, only this time, any patience with his behaviour is gone. If Joyce does jump across to One Nation, he'll energise sections of the right and deepen the Coalition's fragmentation. If he doesn't, he'll keep haunting the party room he refuses to enter.
