Deputy Prime Minister candidate has colourful past

One of the leading candidates to become Australia’s next Deputy Prime Minister was once handcuffed to a pole naked at a ‘sleazy’ Russian nightclub – describing it as the ‘best night of his life’.

Country Liberal party member Nigel Scullion is being primed to replace his old boss Barnaby Joyce as Malcolm Turnbull’s deputy after Mr Joyce was ruled ineligible to sit in Parliament by the High Court on Friday as he is a citizen of New Zealand.

In 2007, Mr Scullion revealed he was handcuffed to a pole in a sleazy club during a boozy night out in St Petersburg in 1998, according to the Daily Telegraph.

‘If you ever get an offer to go drinking with Icelandic whalers and Canadian crab fishermen, take them up on it,’ he said at the time.

The senator was the head of an Australian delegation to a fisheries conference in Russia in September 1998. 

He said it was a ‘big get together with mates’ in what he ‘supposed you could call… a sleazy bar’.

Barnaby Joyce was one of four federal politicians with foreign citizenship issues that were sensationally disqualified from Parliament

He only left the nightclub when a brawl erupted, fleeing with his friends.

‘But I was fully dressed when that happened.’

Barnaby Joyce was one of four federal politicians with foreign citizenship issues that were sensationally disqualified from Parliament.

Mr Scullion is being primed to replace his old boss Barnaby Joyce as Malcolm Turnbull’s (pictured) deputy

The bombshell ruling has triggered a by-election in his electorate of New England.

Mr Joyce’s deputy Fiona Nash, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts and former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters were also ruled ineligible.

Nationals member Matt Canavan and crossbench senator Nick Xenophon were not disqualified. 

He said it was a ‘big get together with mates’ in what he ‘supposed you could call… a sleazy bar’ (stock image)