There comes a point in the life of every 57-year-old accountant-turned-political firebrand-turned-deputy-prime minister-turned-bonk-ban-recipient when he finds himself contemplating a video he didn’t know was taken, starring himself at an hour he can’t recall, sprawled out in a suit next to a planter box outside a Canberra kebab shop, cursing a blue streak and otherwise talking 86 kinds of Ewokese to someone who wasn’t actually on the end of his upside-down phone.
Friends, Barnaby Joyce reached that point four months ago. And late last week, he emerged from rock bottom, 15kg – and curiously, several facial shades – lighter, looking for all the world like a newer, less fire engine-red man.
Image: Marija Ercegovac.Credit:
As success stories go, it was as satisfying as accidentally coming across a back episode of The Biggest Loser and watching a chastened contestant, high on wheatgrass shots and his own horrifying post-workout stench, surviving an elimination challenge after being forced to bench-press his own starting weight in discarded cheesecakes and regret.
Barnaby’s fall – and his subsequent redemption story – had everything. A very public extramarital affair, an unexpected pregnancy, a pre-Christmas country wedding featuring matching his-and-hers Akubra hats, a spiralling mental health situation, the pressure cooker of the Canberra political scene, and (finally) enough booze to leave half of Manuka feeling like it’d been worked over by a potent batch of cooking sherry.
And then, cue Pachelbel’s Canon/the Rocky theme song/Paul Kelly’s To Her Door (strike out where not applicable, because who knows what Barnaby has on high rotation on his Spotify playlist), a glorious plot twist. A period of deep introspection (in a house inhabited by two little boys, whose very presence, as we all know, is not conducive to any sort of introspection), a resolution to quit the demon drink, and (presumably), a different and infinitely more flattering shade of Revlon foundation.
For those of us who thrive on a good riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-Canberra on a Wednesday night-to-riches story, it was practically poetry. And then, as ever, bloody Barnaby had to ruin the script by opening his mouth.
Recalling the impetus for his decision to quit the grog, he didn’t cite a long-held, valiantly waged, entirely forgivable battle with alcoholism, or regale us with a heretofore unrevealed moment when he was acting prime minister, had one too many at Friday night drinks, and drunk-dialled the joint chiefs of defence in a short-lived bid to declare war on Tasmania.
What happened, apparently, was that having suffered his first-ever mental blackout on the footpath in February, he surfaced later with a hangover for the ages, embraced his doctor’s instructions not to mix pills and booze, and quit alcohol, cold turkey.
