Barnaby Joyce goes on filthy rant at ABC anchor David Speers

A bumbling, red-faced Barnaby Joyce had a tense standoff with a TV presenter during a live interview while sidestepping questions about his recent texting scandal.

The Deputy Prime Minister was celebrating with NSW Nationals candidate Nichole Overall after she won the seat of Monaro in a bye-election, despite a strong swing against the Coalition.

Mr Joyce crossed to the ABC election desk from a busy venue in Queanbeyan to talk about his party’s win but was ambushed by ABC Insiders host David Speers after he pulled out of last Sunday’s program.

Speers asked the National’s leader why he thought the Prime Minister was a ‘hypocrite and a liar’ – referring to the leaked March 2021 text he sent which came to light last week amid a string of embarrassments for Scott Morrison. 

Mr Joyce did his best to dodge the question several times, even waving to people off camera instead of answering.

Eventually he gave a rambling response, blaming ‘the media’ for the controversy and likening the scandal to boarding school gossip.

‘You’re smarter than that, Speersy. You’re getting carried away with the peculiarities of what happens in the boarding school,’ Mr Joyce said.

When the veteran news anchor followed up, the deputy prime minister became increasingly frustrated while leaning into the camera as bystanders cheered, saying: ‘That’s for me, Speersy, that’s how much they care about it.

‘Oh mate, you gonna bang on about that. No one cares about it. It just goes to show the media is just losing people. They are dropping off to social media, you know.’

Mr Joyce (right) was not happy when asked by ABC Insiders host David Speers (left) about his texting scandal that saw him label Scott Morrison a hypocrite

One Twitter user called Joyce ‘disgraceful’ and ‘incompetent’ after watching the Nationals leader mid-celebration after Saturday’s NSW by-elections

Twitter users roasted the Deputy Prime Minister over his bizarre behaviour.

‘A disgraceful and incompetent individual who is irrelevant in our current situation,’ one twitter user said. ‘Barney do us a favour mate. Return to your home and just shut up!’

Another said: ‘Good grief! @Barnaby_Joyce just appeared on #ABCNews and like a petulant child did everything he could to avoid David Speers’ questions about his text message about #Morrison pretending he suddenly couldn’t hear. This is your DEPUTY PM. Australia!’

A third joked: ‘The look on Barnaby’s face tonight when he realised he hadn’t been able to avoid Speers asking him about that liar text message. Priceless.’ 

A bumbling, red-faced Barnaby Joyce sidestepped questions about his recent texting scandal during a live interview from the pub

While the Nationals held on in Monaro, the Liberal Party were slapped down by voters in the first test of Premier Dominic Perrottet’s leadership on Saturday. 

The Liberals are almost certain to lose the seat of Bega for the first time in 33 years with Labor’s Michael Holland ahead by a large margin as postal votes continue to be counted.  

Tim James is ahead in the former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s seat in Willoughby – but there’s been a significant swing against the Liberal Party.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Jason Yat-Sen Li has claimed victory in the safe Labor seat of  Strathfield.