Joyce and Turnbull no horse riding or sailing together, just talk

Rather than going above and beyond the call of duty to forge their personal alliance, he said the two party leaders just talk and “It’s just as simple as that”.

“You don’t go riding horses or sailing together,” he said.

“When you’re at work you catch up and have a cup of tea and he’s just around the corner (from ministerial office at Parliament House in Canberra).

“And if I need him, I just go around and say g’day.”

Mr Joyce talked-up his party’s record of policy delivery this week to mark the 12-month anniversary of him becoming Nationals leader, during which time he’s also continued to perform as the Agriculture and Water Resources Minister.

He said the Nationals weren’t involved in a marriage with the Liberal Party but it was a business partnership “and we’re really happy with what that business partnership is achieving”.

Of the now Prime Minister who toppled Tony Abbott at a Liberal party-room meeting in September 2015, of which the Nationals didn’t get a vote but had to wear the outcome, Mr Joyce explained how the two men have now built a rapport, over time.

He said he and Mr Turnbull are “good mates” and talk all of the time and every day when they’re both in Canberra.

“You’re good mates because you understand that you could cause each other problems but you prefer not to do that and so that allows us to get things done, quickly,” he said.

“We’ve known each other politically for years – we come at it from a similar sort of experience of each other.

“I need him to be the Prime Minister – (Labor leader) Bill Shorten’s not going to be much use to me - so I’m going to support him in that role.

“And he understands that at times, if I make the call, I’m not making it because I’ve got nothing to do, I’m making it because it’s important.

“A classic example of that is when they (a range of people) started flying the kite for a sugar tax but we knocked that one out.”

Asked how his party’s trust of Mr Turnbull had evolved, given the first Coalition agreement struck by the then Nationals leader Warren Truss aimed to ensure the new Liberal boss was held tight on core government policy issues like climate change, Mr Joyce warned continued leadership changes were damaging to both parties.

“I don’t trust revolving doors – it makes things chaotic – so I just want to make sure we don’t have a revolving door,” he said.

“I suppose you are just in a business partnership and you need to talk to your business partner and if either one of you pulls out of the business partnership, then neither one of you have a job.

“It’s a respect that comes from knowing the fate of what happens if your relationship breaks down.

“It’s in both of your interests to have a strong relationship – neither party can fly alone – you both need the other one.”

Mr Joyce said he was still enjoying his ministerial role which he started after the 2013 federal election and was “enjoying the results”.

“Having Agriculture and Water Resources in the Deputy Prime Minsters’ office means that Agriculture and Water Resources has a direct conduit every morning to the leadership discussions and that’s very handy,” he said.

Asked if he wanted to continue in the agricultural role, given his elevation to be Deputy Prime Minister upon becoming Nationals leader and increased work-load, Mr Joyce said “I’ve got no plans of goring anywhere”.

“If you’re doing a good job I believe that you should, as much as possible, stick to your knitting,” he said.

“If you’re doing something well, stick to it and I understand the portfolio.

“You can never write these things in blood and sign them in blood because you just don’t know the future but if I didn’t want the portfolio I have the right, as the Deputy Prime Minister, at any point in time, to get another one and I haven’t done that.”

Mr Joyce said farm stakeholders also liked the fact he was continuing as the minister and they “think that we’re doing a very good job”.

“People may say, ‘Well that’s just egotistical’ but it’s not; that’s just what people are saying and people are saying it’s one of the sweetest spots they’ve ever been in financially, in their life.”

Mr Joyce has prioritised dam building and this week talked up providing $2.5 billion for water infrastructure projects, since Water policy was taken from the Environmental ministry portfolio and moved into Agriculture, after Mr Turnbull became leader, as a consequence of that initial Coalition agreement.

But he said if there was any change of government, the Opposition would sabotage the culture that his government has been steadily building, within each department.

“The Labor party will split it and Water will go back to Environment under Labor which means you’ll be dealing with Greenies telling you how evil you are, rather than agriculture saying it’s a resource that we need to utilise,” he said.

“You can’t govern for future governments but I’m creating the culture within the Agriculture Department that water is a natural fit and I hope wiser heads in the future keep it like that.

“It would be silly to move it out because it would just create a complete sort of dysfunctionality because we’d have a massive resource of agriculture residing in another department whose job it is to generally say the word ‘no ‘and the job of agriculture is to have a culture where it generally says the word ‘yes’.”

Asked if he’d changed his political style since becoming leader 12-months ago - given he built his high profile reputation initially as a maverick Queensland Senator - Mr Joyce said he had to change.

“Once you become leader you have a responsibility for the collective rather than just yourself,” he said.

“But I believe in people having their own dung heaps and operating them.

“My style is slightly different to others where they’ll just talk form the front but I delegate to other people.

“I’ve always had that belief, whether I was an accountant or working the farm property.

“If you’re mustering a mob of cattle, you don’t spend your whole life on the two way radio telling the person where to go because they get annoyed with you.

“They’ll say, ‘Mate if you know so much come and do it yourself’ so you just explain the overall task like, ‘I want you to have those cattle in the yards by lunch time’ and they say ‘ok leave that with me’.

“You manage things, if it looks like coming unstuck, and if people are doing a good job, on their own behalf, you leave them alone.”

Of his effort retaining his NSW rural seat of New England at last year’s election and the Coalition holding onto government, Mr Joyce said he was pleased his party had also managed to grow its representative numbers.

“I’m happy with the team and the direction we’re going,” he said.

“It’s an incredible honour and we’ll just keep working and that’s about all we can do.

“My party’s pretty tight – no one is leaving our party.

“We understand our people and I think the National party is going pretty well.

“We’re not perfect but we’re going all-right.

“We’re going to talk about our achievements - not about ourselves.

“But you need to talk about your achievements otherwise people don’t know what you’ve done.

“Our people are the poorest people in the poorest towns.”