DURING the 2007 election campaign, Barnaby Joyce was a Coalition renegade and Liberal strategists shuddered every time the colourful Queenslander opened his mouth.
But now the Nationals Senate leader and opposition frontbencher gloats he is not so much on message with the rest of the Coalition as "they're on message with me", The Australian Financial Review reports
He is even claiming credit for crafting a central Coalition campaign theme. "For instance, talking about debt which at the start I was ridiculed for, but now it's front and centre of the campaign, isn't it?" Senator Joyce said yesterday.
Senator Joyce chose Mareeba in far north Queensland to kickstart his campaign. "As Julia Gillard moves forward, I'm looking after the people she has left behind," he said.
Nationals leader Warren Truss is nominally heading up the party's "Wombat Trail" campaign, focusing on Queensland and NSW, but will join forces with Senator Joyce at various junctures.
Email a friend