{"id":491545,"date":"2026-02-20T03:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491545\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T03:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:27:12","slug":"voters-divided-as-barnaby-joyce-considers-contesting-new-england-for-one-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491545\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters divided as Barnaby Joyce considers contesting New England for One Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has not ruled out recontesting his seat of New England as a One Nation candidate.<\/p>\n

Following his defection from the National Party in December,<\/a> the MP said he planned to run on One Nation’s Senate ticket for NSW.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Joyce has now said there was a “caveat”, and he could recontest in the lower house if it appeared One Nation could win multiple seats.<\/p>\n

“[One Nation] may ask me to see if I can stand for a seat in the House of Representatives so that those who are new to politics have some guidance,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If One Nation is polling above 16-17 per cent, they’re going to start winning several lower house seats \u2026 you’ve got to have someone who knows how the house works, or it can be chaotic.”<\/p>\n

Mr Joyce said it would be up to New England voters to decide if he would retain the seat he has held since 2013.<\/p>\n

Despite One Nation’s hard stance on immigration, which could impact the largely agricultural seat, Mr Joyce said he still represented the interests of the electorate.<\/p>\n

“We’re not saying that there will be no immigration, we’re saying there has to be a lot more thought put into it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“People want to be able to afford a house, they want to be able to go into a hospital and get treated, and they don’t want their schools crowded.<\/p>\n

“They also want the culture throughout the New England and the Upper Hunter to remain an Australian culture.”\"A<\/p>\n

Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce says there is now a “caveat” in his plan to run for a Senate seat in the next election.\u00a0 (Supplied: One Nation)<\/p>\n

Support ‘regardless of the party’<\/p>\n

After retaining the seat as a member of the National Party at the 2025 federal election, Mr Joyce’s decision to join One Nation in November left his constituents divided.<\/a><\/p>\n

It is unclear how many of Mr Joyce’s loyal voters would follow him if he ran again under the One Nation banner.<\/p>\n

On the streets of Tamworth, John O’Meagher said he was surprised by Mr Joyce’s “caveat”, but it was ultimately “his call”.<\/p>\n

He said Mr Joyce’s chances of winning would boil down to who he comes up against in 2028.<\/p>\n

“You don’t know who’ll be standing against him. There could be a very strong candidate come out of other parties in the future,” he said.\"An<\/p>\n

Coral Whichello says she would “100 per cent” vote for One Nation. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

Some residents are still on the fence about where their loyalties lie, but Tamworth local Coral Whichello says she would “100 per cent” vote for One Nation.<\/p>\n

“I’m glad that [Pauline Hanson is] getting her team together and hopefully she can get a good chance,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think Barnaby will be a big help for her, because he’s really good.<\/p>\n

“If he stays with One Nation and Pauline can get all these people on her team, we’ve got a good chance of getting in and I’m hoping that’s what happens.”<\/p>\n

Others noted that Mr Joyce’s reputation would work in his favour if he decided to recontest.<\/p>\n

“I know he does a lot of good stuff for the people out in the country, so if people follow him regardless of the party, we could have One Nation leading,” constituent Jenna Moodley said.<\/p>\n

Others were far more critical of Mr Joyce’s decision to join One Nation.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

New England voter Quentin Dignam says Barnaby Joyce’s political moves are based on “self-interest”.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty clear that Barnaby’s looking to remain in parliament to be an important figure. I think his choices to move are based on his own self-interest,” Quentin Dignam said.<\/p>\n

“Barnaby’s loyalty is to himself and to his career, and his constituents are really a means to do that.”\"A<\/p>\n

Timothy Abra from Tamworth says people should research One Nation’s values before re-electing Mr Joyce.\u00a0 (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

Tim Abra said he had “big concerns” about how One Nation would affect the region.<\/p>\n

“I see [One Nation] as a far-right-wing extremist political group, and I think they’re xenophobic, and that’s not a good stance to have in Australia. I think it’s a horrible stance,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Anyone who is a fan of [Mr Joyce] needs just to make sure they know exactly what he stands for before they vote for him again now that he has jumped ship.”<\/p>\n

Nationals look for new candidate<\/p>\n

The New England Nationals branch will meet on Saturday to lay out the preselection process to replace Mr Joyce.<\/p>\n

Chair Daniel Gillett said the departure of the long-time member had an impact on local party members.<\/p>\n

“It really did hurt, it hurt a lot,” he told ABC Western Plains Breakfast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Gillet said he was confident the Nationals could win the seat at the next election with the help of a new legion of members.<\/p>\n

“We have had a really dramatic increase in the number of members since [Mr Joyce] left our organisation,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What we’re seeing is people who haven’t engaged with us for a long time \u2026 coming back to us and saying, ‘We want to volunteer for you \u2026 and make sure that the voters get what they asked for and what they deserve.'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has not ruled out recontesting his seat of New England as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,248275,68825,68896,5384,44,60504,14754],"class_list":{"0":"post-491545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-b-arnaby-joyce-one-nation","11":"tag-barnaby-joyce","12":"tag-federal-election","13":"tag-new-england","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-one-nation","16":"tag-pauline-hanson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}