Barnaby Joyce has taken a veiled swipe at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's leadership of the coalition, warning not every leader is a "messiah".
Amid lacklustre results from last weekend's by-elections and lingering uncertainty and internal dissent over energy policy, the former deputy prime minister said he could not stand the "Orwellian groupthink" in politics.
"Don't think that everyone is a messiah," Mr Joyce told former coalition chief-of-staff and Sky News host Peta Credlin in an interview airing on Saturday.
"They're not."
Asked whether the coalition's failure to win back any seats in last week's by-elections demanded a change of leader, Mr Joyce refused to bite.
"This is about talking to your local footy side and saying 'if you play the second half like you just played the first, boy oh boy you're going to get smashed,'" he said.
He claimed the by-election losses revealed a growing group of discontents who would rather vote for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson than the major parties.
In the marginal Queensland seat of Longman, the Liberal's primary vote dropped into the 20s, while One Nation's rose above 15 per cent.
This, even while Senator Hanson was away holidaying on a cruise around the British Isles - replaced at polling booths by cardboard cutouts.
"It ain't fine when you get votes in the 20s," Mr Joyce said.
"Take your medicine. Learn from it."
He went as far as criticising the nickname "Big Trev" for the Liberal's Longman candidate Trevor Ruthenberg, a moniker repeatedly used by Mr Turnbull.
"I wouldn't call him big Trev," Mr Joyce said.
"A moniker is what you're given by the public after a period of service. You don't give it to yourself."
Mr Joyce then made a vague claim should the government put the Paris agreement on climate change above power prices and Australian agriculture.
"If we go down that path then forget it, I'm out, see you later," he said.
"We are sick of having all these caveats placed on us by green groups, by well-intentioned, well-paid people in Giorgio Armani suits sitting back and pontificating about the world and then leaving the bill."
Mr Joyce resigned as deputy prime minister in February after revelations surfaced of his affair with former staffer Vikki Campion.
He said being relegated to the backbench meant he now had the ability to speak out.
"You basically kick people up the arse, say 'think about it.' If you don't change, the result won't change," he said.
"I want to be the iconoclast. I want to stand people on their heads. I want to get people annoyed because then they start to think."
Australian Associated Press
