This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A majority of voters think Barnaby Joyce should vacate the leadership of the Nationals after a week of ceaseless controversy about his private life and an extraordinary bout of open warfare with the prime minister.



The latest Newspoll finds 65% of a sample of 1,632 voters thinks Joyce should resign the leadership of the Nationals, while a third of the sample thinks he should quit parliament.

Play Video 1:46 Why is Barnaby Joyce's leadership under threat? – video explainer

The negative poll comes as Joyce has taken a period of personal leave, and his colleagues will take soundings in their electorates before returning to Canberra next week. With federal parliament not sitting this week, the prime minister will travel to the US this week for talks with president Donald Trump.

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While most of the Newspoll movements are within the survey’s margin of error, the controversy of the past fortnight has coincided with a five-point drop in Turnbull’s approval rating.

Labor remains well ahead of the Coalition on the two-party-preferred measure, 53% to 47%. The Guardian Essential poll’s two-party-preferred result is similar, with Labor ahead 54% to 46%.

Publication of the Newspoll follows more than a week of remarkable tumult in Canberra, which was triggered by confirmation of Joyce’s marriage breakup and his new relationship with his 33-year-old former staffer, Vikki Campion, who is pregnant, and due to give birth in April.

The Joyce controversy prompted some Nationals to contemplate moving against him as party leader last week on the basis that it was unsustainable for a conservative, “family values” political party to have him remain as figurehead – an internal rebellion which faltered in the space of 24 hours.

Having seen off the rebellion, and believing himself in a more stable position despite his private travails, Joyce then suffered the humiliation of Turnbull confirming publicly that he would not be acting prime minister as is the convention during this week’s US visit, with the government Senate leader, Matthias Cormann, performing the role.

Not content with that signal, Turnbull then excoriated Joyce publicly, calling on the Nationals leader to consider his position after inflicting a “world of woe” on his estranged wife and four daughters, and his new partner – and announcing a ban on ministers having sexual relationships with their staff.

Joyce then returned fire, accusing Turnbull of overstepping the mark, and characterising the public dressing down by the prime minister as “inept” and “unnecessary”.

Given the extraordinary rupturing of their relationship, which sparked open jostling and recriminations between Liberals and Nationals, Turnbull and Joyce attempted to paper over their differences by meeting without staff at the weekend.

Asked during an interview on the Nine Network on Sunday night to characterise his relationship with the deputy prime minister after the eruptions of the past few days, Turnbull replied: “It’s frank. It’s a frank relationship.”

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He expressed no regret for his excoriation of the Nationals leader. “I think Australians wanted to hear their prime minister’s heartfelt views about these events, they wanted to know what I felt about them,” he told 60 Minutes. “They wanted to hear it from my lips but also from my heart.

“Saying you’re speaking for 25 million people is a bit presumptuous, but I certainly felt that the values I expressed and the action I took, would have the overwhelming endorsement of Australians. I felt it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

The soft interview on 60 Minutes was punctured by one or two questions about the government’s failure to win an opinion poll over many months, which is uncomfortable for the prime minister given that he used a sustained poor performance in Newspoll as a rationale to unseat Tony Abbott from the prime ministership in 2015.

Asked to reflect on negative public sentiment, Turnbull said it was important not to be “self-regarding”.

“I don’t hurt very much, frankly,” he said.