Joyce Will Not Recontest Seat at Next Election, One Nation Door Wide Open

Joyce’s resignation comes just days after Pauline Hanson revealed she was expecting a ‘high-profile senior leader’ to defect to One Nation.

Nationals member for New England Barnaby Joyce before a press conference outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 28, 2025. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has confirmed he will not recontest his seat of New England at the next federal election.

The two-time deputy prime minister said his decision came amid years of ongoing tension with the Nationals’ leadership on policy issues and restrictions on campaigning.

“My relationship with the leadership of the Nationals in Canberra has unfortunately, like a sadness in some marriages, irreparably broken down,” Joyce said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times.

“I am free to now consider all options as to what I do next,” he said, declining to rule out joining another political movement.

While Joyce has not confirmed any negotiations, with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson opening the door for the regional MP.

“The instructions that during the federal election I was not to campaign outside New England as that did not represent the views of the Nationals, then after the election being moved on for ‘generational change’ and just the atmospherics in the party room, where I am seated in the far corner of the Coalition in the chamber, means I am seen and now turning into a discordant note. That is not who I want to be.”

Earlier this year, current Nationals leader David Littleproud removed Joyce from the frontbench following a failed leadership contest.

Rifts Over Climate Policy

Joyce’s departure caps years of friction with the Nationals’ leadership over the Liberal-National Coalition’s stance on net zero emissions and renewable energy.

“Our position in continuing to support net zero with the massive schism and hurt to my electorate, to small businesses, to the environment, to the poor, to the defence of Australia and creating hate between lifelong friends in my community makes continuing in the Nationals’ party room in Canberra under this policy untenable,” he said.

Both the Liberals and Nationals are currently reviewing their net-zero commitments, but for Joyce, the policy remains a point of fundamental disagreement.

He has argued that the transition is undermining jobs in regional communities and driving up living costs. Joyce in July even moved a bill proposing to scrap net zero.

One Nation Speculation

Joyce’s resignation comes just days after One Nation’s Hanson said she expected a “high-profile senior leader” to defect to the conservative-leaning minor party.

Last week, Tamworth-based Nationals branch chairman Stephen Coxhead (located within the electorate of New England) confirmed his defection to One Nation—a move Hanson said reflected growing frustration among conservatives “who see that there’s no future with the Liberal National Party.”

Hanson was also open to the possibility of Joyce joining her party.

“He’s more aligned with One Nation than what he is with the National party,” she told Nine News.

“He’s been shut down by the National party. They put him on the back bench, out of the way, ‘Just sit there, shut up, Barnaby.’ I’ll encourage him … [to] come across to One Nation.”

Liberal Party Challenges Continue

Speaking to ABC RN Breakfast, Hanson also said she had seen an uptick in interest from the Coalition and that she had not actively recruited members.

She said right faction MPs James Paterson, Michaelia Cash, and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price were “fighting a losing battle” within the legacy centre-right party, which has been increasingly dominated by the moderate and progressive factions.

Price and recent-shadow home affairs spokesperson, Andrew Hastie, only just resigned from the frontbench amid policy disagreements with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

Former Liberal MP Craig Kelly said on X that if Joyce were to join One Nation, it would give the party official lower house status—granting access to more funding and staffing resources.

“Five is the magic number,” Kelly wrote. “If Barnaby joined One Nation, that would give them party status in Parliament. It’s not the first time he’s been in discussions with them, but this time he knows he can win a Senate seat.”

Nationals Call It ‘A Sad Day’

Senior Nationals figures expressed dismay at Joyce’s decision, acknowledging his long service but lamenting the circumstances of his departure.

Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Bridget McKenzie described it as “a sad day for both me and for our great party.”

“I consider Barnaby a friend, a fellow warrior and a courageous conservative in the federal parliament as a member of the Nationals,” she said.

She added that all throughout she found Barnaby “a man of faith, of passions.”

“I regard him as a leader with a deep and abiding love and patriotism for our country.”

Former Nationals leader Michael McCormack, now on the backbench, was more pointed in his criticism, saying Joyce had “apparently disowned” the party that twice made him deputy prime minister.

“He was only able to be in that very high office because of the National Party of Australia and those people who put on a yellow T-shirt and turned up on election day, at branch meetings, and fundraised for him,” McCormack told the ABC.

“To then apparently disown the National Party today because he has irreparable problems with the leadership of the party, well, I just find that really disappointing.”

Meanwhile, Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Coalition was “more divisive and more divided than ever.”

“You know the Coalition is bad if not even Barnaby Joyce wants to be part of it,” he said.