So Barnaby Joyce is the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia once again. Cool. Great. Wonderful. Love that for quite literally all of us.
Joyce managed to roll incumbent Nationals leader Michael McCormack in a party room spill earlier this morning by a vote of 10 to 9, which is impressive in the sense that a group of less than 20 people have this kind of direct input into how the entire country is run. The Nationals do not have a deep bench. Never have, never will.
And while that in and of itself presents as a real head-scratcher of a choice – particularly given his fairly checkered history which includes, but is not limited to, claiming “God” was the only being that could solve climate change, publicly threatening to murder two celebrity dogs, a very public affair with a staffer that resulted in then-PM Malcolm Turnbull instituting a “bonk ban” for ministers, and a string of sexual harassment allegations that ultimately lead to him vacating the 2IC job in 2018 – there are some positives.
Namely, it’s the fact that just about every photo that exists of Barnaby Joyce – be it on the floor of Parliament or otherwise – looks like it’s been captured while he is either mid- or post-shitting himself.
In the grand tradition of Coalition figures shitting their pants (and it is a rich history) Barnaby stands alone as King.
No politician in modern Australian memory comes close to providing the kind of danger fart fodder that Joyce contributes to the oeuvre.
To be clear at this point, we are not in any way suggesting that Barnaby Joyce has, indeed, repeatedly shit himself while performing official duties. This is not our suggestion at all, and this article is not to be read as such.
Rather, we are simply suggesting that almost every photo that exists of Barnaby Joyce gives off energy and radiance similar to that of a man whomst hath shatteth thine dacks.
Observe our thesis thusly:
February 11th, 2016. Barnaby Joyce ascends to the throne of Deputy Prime Minister following the retirement of Warren Truss. Though in this photo you’d be forgiven for thinking that, in all the excitement, Barnaby has gone boom boom in his trousers.
May 9th, 2017: Barnaby here, snapped sitting in Parliament, gives off thrumming “Oh Fuck I’ve Done It Again” vibes. “Oh no, ahhh christ” he seems to say, butt presumably trumpeting in comedic fashion. “Ahh and it reeks too” you can picture him cooing.
October 25th, 2017: Following the Federal Police’s raid on the Australian Workers’ Union headquarters, then-Labor leader Bill Shorten moves that the operation is anti-union smear campaign. Across the room, Barnaby Joyce is photographed in such a way that you could say he himself has made a movement for some sort of smear campaign of his own.
February 4th, 2020: Joyce, now long-deposed from his Deputy PM chair, sits solemnly in the back rows of the lower house. His pose suggests the back rows of his lower house may have also conducted some contemplating of their own.
February 10, 2020: A bit more a Where’s Wally situation, Joyce rises in Parliament, with the image captured easily comparable to a man who has, indeed, just shit the absolute fuck out of himself in a crowded room and is trying to best assess his exit strategy before anyone notices.
February 4th, 2021: This one is just bare bones hilarious. What the hell are you doing sitting on that weird little chair at the very back of the room, dude? The tightly crossed legs, the pursed lips, my god. Again, we’re not saying he definitely did shit himself, just that this photo really makes it look like he did. That’s different. That’s a different thing, that we’re saying.
June 2nd, 2021: In this photo, the interpretation can quite easily be made that Barnaby is in the middle of choosing whether to admit that he has shit himself and quietly take his leave, or endure listening to whatever the blue blazing fuck Craig Kelly is talking about for a while longer. A choice far harder than Sophie ever had to make.
June 3rd, 2021: Finally, a small handful of days ago. Joyce, expertly captured in Parliament as he enters the final days of his tenure as Not The Deputy Prime Minister. A historic period for Australia, and certainly a historic period for his pants, as the face suggests they have just been destroyed with a sustained, low blast.
Again, it’s the artistic interpretation of these photos that suggests all the pants shitting action. These aren’t accusations direct.
We have to be very clear about this. It’s two distinct things, and we’re only doing one of them.
Unlike Barnaby, who appears – appears, we stress again – to be doing a two.
