Senior Liberals rubbish Barnaby Joyce’s claim of talks over deal with One Nation as ‘figment of his imagination’

Senior Liberals have rubbished claims by Barnaby Joyce that he has discussed One Nation offering the Coalition a pathway to minority government after the next election, accusing him of buyers remorse after defecting from the Nationals.

Joyce, who defected to join Pauline Hanson’s party in December, claimed on Tuesday night he had held talks with senior Liberals about a potential deal for supply and confidence to oust Anthony Albanese from power.

Hanson has appealed to the Coalition and opposition leader Angus Taylor to unite against Labor ahead of the 2028 election.

“We’ve said our job is to get rid of the socialists, so we would offer supply and confidence to the Coalition, and obviously on the premise of solid policy outcomes that we would want to happen,” Joyce said.

“We would want there to be clear acknowledgment that they are our policy outcomes and we would have a regimen then of looking at legislation as it came forward.”

He told News24 One Nation would expect the same deal in return if the party won more seats than the Coalition.

“You want to give whoever the government is the best opportunity of stability.”

Taylor on Wednesday denied any talks had taken place.

“No and I gave no authority to anyone else to have that conversation,” he said during a campaign stop in New South Wales.

Joyce would not say which Liberals he had spoken to about confidence and supply, refusing to answer if the discussions had been with Taylor, or shadow ministers including Matt Canavan, the Nationals leader.

One Nation has ruled out a formal coalition agreement with the Liberals and Nationals, while Taylor has left open the possibility of governing in minority with a guarantee from One Nation that it would not vote against government bills.

Liberals including the South Australian power broker Alex Antic have urged colleagues to work closely with Hanson.

But Joyce’s claim fell flat with Liberal MPs on Wednesday.

The deputy leader, Jane Hume, was dismissive of Joyce, telling News24 the former National was “clutching at straws” and adding she did not know who the discussions were with.

“I don’t know what Barnaby’s motives are,” she said. “Perhaps he’s got some sort of post-purchase dissonance, moving to One Nation.”

Hume said the Coalition was focused on replacing the Labor government and was not interested in a conversation with One Nation about confidence and supply.

The shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, said the talks were a “figment of Barnaby’s imagination”.

“I understand Barnaby has regrets about jumping over to a new political party where he doesn’t pull the strings and is now just operated by others.

“This is a man who has previously gone to his electorate and said that he’s going to be a Nationals MP throughout the life of this term. He broke that promise to his electorate. He said he’d support his leader. He broke that promise. He said he’d support his party. He broke that promise.”

Joyce hit back, calling Wilson “a clown”.

“We do not want to be in a coalition with Tim [Wilson] to be quite frank,” he said.

“He’s supposed to be the [shadow] treasurer it’s a shame he can’t count … how are you supposed to get supply and confidence Tim, if you don’t have the numbers?”