It will be fascinating to watch the relationship between prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the man who will run the country in his absence, writes Lenore Taylor

When Barnaby Joyce made international headlines by telling Johnny Depp his Yorkshire terriers would have to “bugger off” back to America or be put down it was no accidental 15 minutes of global fame.

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The outspoken Joyce – who to the trepidation of many colleagues has been elected leader of the rural-based Nationals party and therefore also becomes deputy prime minister in Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government – just got a little more publicity than he was banking on.

Frustrated that a campaign to draw attention to Australia’s veterinary quarantine laws was not getting much attention, Joyce later explained that he asked his advisers for any specific cases that might get some attention. Someone mentioned the terriers – Pistol and Boo – allegedly brought into the country by private plane and rumbled because they had been taken to a poodle parlour on the Gold Coast.

“Bingo”, Joyce said, immediately spotting the publicity opportunity, although perhaps not anticipating the infamy of a take-down skit on John Oliver’s show.

Since he entered politics in 2005 Joyce, now 48, has always said what he thinks, in the vernacular of the bloke on the street, although only in more recent years has it been apparent that he has entirely thought through the consequences.

And his relationship with the man he now serves as deputy will be fascinating to watch, because on so many things his views could not be more different from Turnbull’s.

I’m always sceptical of the idea that the way that anybody’s going to change the climate ... is bureaucrats and taxes Barnaby Joyce

Turnbull lost the Liberal leadership in 2009 because he was not prepared to “lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am.” Joyce led the internal fight against his backing for the Labor’s carbon tax, which caused his overthrow.

During that campaign Joyce made famously outlandish claims that the tax could see the cost of lamb roasts soar to $100. When the carbon tax was eventually repealed, Joyce urged journalists to observe the weather that day. “No one thinks it is too hot,” he said. Just last year he continued to question the link between climate change, human activity and the weather, this time because it was cold.

“Look … I just – I’m always sceptical of the idea that the way that anybody’s going to change the climate – and I’m driving in this morning and we’re driving through a frost – is with bureaucrats and taxes. All that does is … it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I make you feel guilty so I can get your money and put it in my pocket and send reports backwards and forth to one another,” he told conservative commentator Andrew Bolt.

His National party supporters have also backed the push that forced the Coalition to appoint a special wind commissioner to investigate health complaints against wind farms and have argued for a crackdown on tax concessions for green groups.

Turnbull is a self-made millionaire and proponent of free markets. Joyce is a self declared agrarian socialist. He has campaigned against investments by foreign state-owned enterprises in Australian farms and resource projects and in favour of stronger competition laws to protect small businesses.

Turnbull wrested the Liberal leadership from Tony Abbott last year promising a calm and rational economic debate. When Joyce was the Coalition’s finance spokesman in opposition, he claimed Australia could default on its foreign debt.

“We’re going into hock to our eyeballs to people overseas. And you’ve got to ask the question how far in debt do you want to go? We are getting to a point where we can’t repay it,” he said, a warning dismissed by leading economists as both irresponsible and a nonsense.

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The governor of the Reserve Bank Glenn Stevens said at the time there were “few things less likely than Australia defaulting on its sovereign debt”.

Turnbull is a strong supporter of marriage equality. Joyce is opposed and has claimed legalising marriage equality was like “passing a piece of legislation that said that a diamond is a square” and could mean Australia was seen as “decadent” in parts of south-east Asia.

In his maiden speech to parliament Joyce said abortion was “the slavery debate of our time.”

The Liberals’ main economic aim is to boost economic growth, including by encouraging non-working parents to return to their jobs, or work more hours. Joyce and the Nationals champion the rights and needs of stay-at-home mothers.

But his the earthy, plain-speaking style also creates Joyce’s appeal. He cuts through. He makes people listen. And he knows how to win his party’s rural constituency.

As the Guardian’s Gabrielle Chan reported he used a recent speech on his plans as agriculture minister to laud the family farm.

“I hear from some quarters, the day of the family farm is over, possibly walking out the door with the family business and the family house. Like journalism without grammar, the land without the family farm is meaningless, soulless, it goes to the core fabric of our nation,” he said.

The country accountant grew up in the bush, entered politics as a Queensland senator and then moved to New South Wales for the lower house seat in the federal parliament, New England, that could allow him to pursue his leadership ambitions. In his early years in parliament he regularly voted against his own party, or held out for extra concessions for country areas. But he always agonised over his dissent - during a particularly fraught debate about selling the government-owned telecommunications company Telstra in 2009 – where he wielded a decisive vote, he took himself to hospital with chest pains.

Since 2013 when he became a cabinet minister, he has learned to – for the most part and in his own way – work within the party strictures. He has curbed his excesses of language and restricted his wanderings off the approved party script.

But the Depp dog furore is a perfect example of the different approach Joyce will take to leading the Nationals – the rural-based minor party in the governing Coalition that has in recent years had a series of gentlemanly leaders who, wherever possible, have settled differences with their Coalition parties quietly, created public fusses only rarely, and international incidents never.

With the Greens making common cause with farmers battling coalmines and coal seam gas and rural-based independents nipping at their heels, there have been strongly divided views in the Nationals about whether they can survive without being quite a lot louder.

The old school Nationals have argued Joyce has not got the character or discipline to be leader. They formed an “anyone but Barnaby” faction and tried desperately to stall and stymie his determined rise to the leadership. They were deeply angered by what they thought was unseemly public pressure by Joyce for the well-respected previous leader, Warren Truss, to step aside.

But younger Nationals MPs and Senators have supported Joyce and backed his cause because they think that once the election has been run, and won, it is time for the Nationals to making a noise.

“We have to differentiate if we are to survive as a party. When we disagree we have to be prepared to say so publicly,” one said as the party prepared for the Thursday night meeting where Joyce was elected unopposed.

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The government is talking up the idea that the urbane Turnbull and blunt-speaking Joyce will make a complementary team.

While that might be the case in public style, it seems unlikely it will always be the case in policy substance. Just how far he pushes the Nationals’ desire for political “differentiation” is Joyce’s critical judgement as leader.

As for Johnny Depp’s dogs, after the international fracas died down, Joyce was awarded the Froggatt award for principled decision making by the Invasive Species Council for “acting quickly and decisively” against actor Depp and his wife, Amber Heard, for allegedly bringing their Yorkshire terriers into Australia in breach of quarantine laws.

The chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, Andrew Cox, said Joyce was right to resist public pressure and stand up to the film star.

“It might have seemed like a bit of a joke at the time but Barnaby Joyce did the right thing by enforcing Australia’s strict quarantine laws,” Cox said.