So, it turns out Barnaby Joyce is a cheat, in many ways. I wrote a little essay for Meanjin on him and his political class.

Let us not speak of Barnaby Joyce.

Let us not speak of a man who turned protection against HPV and cervical cancer into a ‘licence to be promiscuous’, demonstrating poor medical, psychological and moral reasoning. A man who defended ‘the current definition of marriage’ in parliament, ignoring not only John Howard’s recent changes to the law, but also that the de facto Australian definition is now wholly at odds with his own. A man who blundered in all these ways—and, we now know, so many more.

Let us not speak of Barnaby Joyce, then. Let us, instead, speak of hypocrites and the deluded: those who deceive others, or perhaps just themselves. Those who say one thing and do another, either because they are deceitful cynics, or because they are too foolish to see their own contradictions.