Australia’s deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has revealed he offered his resignation to Scott Morrison while publicly apologising for calling him a “hypocrite and a liar” in a leaked text message.
Joyce told reporters on Saturday that Morrison had rejected his offer to resign as deputy prime minister during a phone call earlier this week after Joyce learned screenshots of the text were being circulated.
In the message, dated last March and written before he returned to the Nationals leadership, Joyce wrote he did not “get along” with Morrison, saying: “He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time… I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said on Saturday it was now “untenable” for Joyce to continue as deputy prime minister, saying Joyce had been in the same cabinet as Morrison for half a decade when he sent the text.
The ABC’s Sunday morning political commentary show Insiders also announced Joyce had pulled out of a scheduled interview with the program. The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, would take his place.
Joyce told reporters on Saturday he “never expected [the text] to end up in the public realm” and said his views at the time were based on “assumption and commentary” from a backbencher.
Joyce said: “I offered my resignation and he did not accept my resignation. And that, in itself, is a statement of a person of greater character. That is not one of a person of any form of vindictiveness or a sense of retribution.”
Joyce accepted the emergence of the text was damaging to the prime minister, saying “you don’t apologise for things that you don’t think cause harm”.
He did not elaborate on what had sparked the text, but said “whatever it is was wrong because it was never from a conversation that I had with the prime minister, because I was never in a job that had a conversation with the prime minister at that stage.”
Joyce claimed that since becoming deputy prime minister in July 2021, Morrison had “showed competency” in negotiations within the Coalition and had “honoured every agreement” with the junior Coalition partner.
The text had been forwarded by its original unnamed recipient to former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, Joyce said.
On Friday evening, Morrison did not say a resignation offer had been made, but said in a statement he had accepted Joyce’s apology immediately.
He said: “I understand Barnaby was in a different headspace last year, both professionally and personally, and so I know he genuinely no longer feels this way. Relationships change over time. Politicians are humans beings too. We all have our frailties and none of us are perfect.”
Parliament is scheduled to return on Tuesday. Albanese told reporters Joyce’s text was “extraordinary” and said the government was “obsessed by their internal hatred and dysfunction”.
He said Joyce’s role beside Morrison was now “untenable” and rejected Joyce’s suggestion that his more recent relationship had changed his views on the prime minister.
“That was after Barnaby Joyce had served in the cabinet for over half a decade along side of Scott Morrison … The idea that this was just a flippant remark is simply untenable,” he said.
The emergence of the explosive message comes just days after a text exchange between former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian and a current federal minister was revealed during questions at the National Press Club.
Berejiklian had described the prime minister as a “horrible, horrible person” with the unnamed minister saying Morrison was a “fraud” and a “complete psycho”.
