Barilaro to make decision on political future next month but rules out Senate bid

“No I am not running,” Mr Barilaro said.

A senior Nationals source with knowledge of preselections said there had been no discussions about Mr Barilaro running for the Senate and a spokeswoman for his office said he would make a decision on his future in March, as had always been his plan.

Mr Barilaro wanted to run for Eden-Monaro in the federal byelection last year but pulled out in a bid to avoid a contest against his NSW Liberal colleague, Transport Minister Andrew Constance.

The Nationals would have the second place on the Coalition senate ticket at the election, with Foreign Minister Marise Payne the likely number one and current senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells to fight to contest the third spot against several likely challengers.

Perin Davey was elected from third place on the ticket in 2019 following the retirement of John Williams, but the Nationals lost their second NSW senator in 2017, Fiona Nash, during the section 44 citizenship chaos.

Mr Barilaro has had a toxic relationship with his federal Nationals colleagues in recent years, including accusing Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack of deliberately hampering his bid to run in the lower house seat of Eden Monaro in an extraordinary text message.

He told Mr McCormack that he had “failed your team and failed as a leader”.

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“Your lack of public enthusiasm or support for my candidacy went a long way to my final decision,” Mr Barilaro wrote. “Don’t hide behind the ‘members will choose the candidate rubbish’, as you were the only one saying such lines.”

“To feel threatened by me clearly shows you have failed your team and failed as a leader. You will never be acknowledged by me as our leader. You aren’t. You never will be,” the message said.

While former leader Barnaby Joyce, an outspoken critic of Mr McCormack, has in the past conceded he is not “exceedingly close” to Mr Barilaro, he believed he would have won the federal byelection last year had he contested.

“If Barilaro is a bit grating and pushy and will be ‘trouble’ in Canberra, then that is precisely the trouble the country needs,” he wrote in May last year.

“The smart money for the whole Coalition should be to get Barilaro to stand if it wants to pull this current mess out of the fire.”