Joyce names price of One Nation backing Angus Taylor

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has revealed the price of supporting the Coalition in a hung parliament, saying the populist party would demand pro-mining policies, new dams and the revival of the $45 billion inland rail project, in return for making Angus Taylor prime minister.

The Nationals defector told this masthead One Nation would seek to scrap the climate change department, deregulate the farming sector, cut taxes such as the tobacco excise and slash immigration numbers, if One Nation won enough seats to help the Coalition govern in minority.

“It won’t be an ideological conversation,” Joyce said of the hypothetical post-election scenario. “And if we’ve got more numbers than them, we’d expect that deal going back in the other direction. It cuts both ways.”

Joyce stirred up the controversy on Tuesday when he said in a TV interview on News24 that he had held conversations with “very senior” Liberals about providing confidence and supply to the Coalition.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan quickly clarified to colleagues on Wednesday night that they had no such conversations. Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson suggested on News24 the talks were a “figment of Barnaby’s imagination” and that the former deputy prime minister had buyer’s remorse about joining Hanson’s party, reflecting a view in the Coalition that Joyce’s behaviour and public appearances were becoming increasingly erratic.

Top Liberals speculated that Joyce had spoken with federal Liberal president Tony Abbott. But Abbott told this masthead the suggestion was “not correct”.

Asked at a press conference if he knew anything about the supposed talks on Wednesday, Taylor said: “No, and I gave no authority to anyone else to have that conversation.”

Joyce told this masthead One Nation did not want to go to the election promising to work in any kind of formal coalition with the establishment centre-right party. He said it should be no surprise that he had been talking to Coalition figures about confidence and supply, given the likelihood that neither of the parties will be able to form a majority on its own.

“Let’s all be adults about this,” he said, refusing to state publicly who he had spoken to. “We don’t want chaos; we want to remove the socialists.

“It would be more surprising if someone started talking about this the day after the election.”

Joyce challenged Coalition figures to say that they would not accept One Nation’s support to form a government. He stressed that final decisions and negotiations on how to deal with the Coalition would be made by Hanson.

Non-government MPs sitting as independents provide confidence and supply by promising to keep the government functioning by supporting it in votes on whether the parliament trusted the government, and sanctioning spending.

Polls show that Labor’s primary vote is struggling but that it would still win an election if one were held today.

Coalition sources said Joyce’s surprise claim about the alleged talks, more than a year from an election, fits into a pattern of One Nation figures raising the notion of collaboration as a way to trap Taylor. Hanson has been able to draw anti-Coalition sentiment from her supporters whenever Taylor says the Coalition’s intends to govern alone.

Hanson has claimed she wants to work with the Coalition. However, her party is targeting Liberal- and National-held seats that would decimate the Coalition if One Nation were to win, and is drawing the vast majority of her support from former Coalition voters.

The most senior Liberal to call for collaboration with Hanson is far-right senator Alex Antic. He advocated for some type of tie-up two days after becoming president of the South Australian Liberal division on the weekend.

Wilson said of Joyce’s claims: “I think they’re a figment of Barnaby’s imagination.

“I understand Barnaby has regrets about jumping over to a new political party where he doesn’t pull the strings and is now just operated by others.”

Joyce laughed off Wilson’s barb: “Yeah, Tim, I just made it up. I get bored, mate. Clown,” he told News24.

Frontbencher Jane Hume said: “I’m pretty sure that this is Barnaby clutching at straws. Perhaps he’s got some sort of post-purchase dissonance … I have absolutely no idea exactly what it is that Barnaby is discussing.”

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.