![\"Nationals](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4be3d2523c2085bc5749da03ce0d5d54686a2adc59484dc1b2a8d5c047a9b628.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cI 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,\u201d McCormack said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he a maverick? Of course he is … but he has country people at his heart. And I would just hate to think that in 20 years time, somebody will look at that wall up the front of the national party room and see only one person who has ever walked out on the party which gave them the great honour of being the leader. I don\u2019t want him to be that person.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson talk over a dinner of pasta, salad and steak in Hanson\u2019s office on Monday night.<\/p>\n
McCormack urged Joyce to take the summer to consider his political future in the Nationals and praised him for playing a \u201cmassive, leading role in a policy outcome, as in dumping net zero\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat also upsets me is that he and Matt Canavan\u2019s relationship has in the last 24 to 48 hours, been tested, you know, like they\u2019re like brothers, they really are. And you don\u2019t like to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canavan challenged Littleproud for the leadership<\/a> after the election and piled pressure on the party leader to kill the 2050 emissions target. He is also a leading populist-right voice in the Coalition and communicates with the same segment of the electorate being targeted by a surging One Nation party that Joyce could lead in future.<\/p>\n Canavan\u2019s attack lines against Hanson and Joyce this week signify a new-found appetite to target One Nation from the Coalition, which has spent years feuding with the teal independents hoovering up votes in the inner city.<\/p>\n Barnaby Joyce has feuded with Nationals leader David Littleproud.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are [Hanson\u2019s] runs on the board?\u201d Canavan said, stressing that he still had respect for the One Nation leader.<\/p>\n \u201cCan Pauline point to a dam, a road, a bridge, a hospital? A change in laws that has helped small business or farmers? I can\u2019t think of any. She\u2019s been around for three decades.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Barnaby](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/a61a512aec19b34219a0a2e0311406b3d776c646.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n