Federal MP Barnaby Joyce has announced he will leave the National Party.
While it was widely expected that Joyce would move to One Nation instead, he did not confirm that he was joining a new party today.
However, he confirmed he is “strongly considering” a move.
Here’s what you need to know.
Barnaby Joyce
Barnaby Joyce has been the MP for New England, a seat that covers areas of northern NSW, since 2013. He was a senator for Queensland before then.
Joyce was the leader of the National Party from 2016 to 2018, but stood down after a personal relationship with his former staffer was revealed.
Since then, he has remained part of the Nationals on the backbench.
Leaving
Joyce said he was resigning from the Nationals with a “heavy heart”.
He said he had been “trying to work through this for a long period of time... and there seemed no real resolution to the breakdown in the relationship… the smartest thing to do is move on”.
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Joyce said he wanted to put himself in a “better position” to work on key issues.
While he didn’t confirm a move to One Nation, he said there were more members of that party in Tamworth, a town in his electorate, than Nationals members.
Is that allowed?
There is no law in Australia that stops parliamentarians from changing political parties, or sitting as an independent, once they are elected.
The way the Constitution is set up means members of Parliament are there as an individual.
Other examples of this include Fatima Payman leaving Labor to sit as an independent in the Senate last year.
Response
Nationals leader David Littleproud declined to comment when contacted by TDA.
Joyce confirmed today “he’d had no communication with either the leader of the National party or the deputy leader of the National party to try and resolve this”.
He labelled this “disappointing”.
