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Barnaby Joyce’s tell-all book to be published in August

Former deputy prime minister and new dad Barnaby Joyce is writing a book about his life and political career.

Mr Joyce’s tell-all memoir will be published by New Holland in August.

The former Nationals leader, who just last week welcomed a baby son with former staffer and new partner Vikki Campion, has clearly been busy since heading to the backbench earlier this year.

“I think this book gives Barnaby the chance to answer what is important to him as a politician, man, father and partner,” publisher Alan Whiticker told The New Daily.

“What comes through is his love of the bush, his passion for his job and, yes, his concern for those closest to him. I believe his story will surprise those people who think they know what he stands for.”

New Holland said the autobiography will be a warts-and-all account that is “guaranteed not to disappoint”.

Mr Joyce has had a turbulent recent few months, culminating in the breakdown of his 24-year marriage to Natalie Joyce (mother of his four daughters) and this month’s birth of son Sebastian.

Last week, he told the ABC he would do everything he could to be a good father, starting with changing the culture of politics.

“[It] is insane that a partner who probably knows more about your office than anyone else can’t work in your office,” he said.

“If they are qualified to do the job, if they have the qualifications, then why not allow them to do it?”

Under the Members of Parliament Staff Act, senators and MPs cannot hire a partner, children, parent or sibling.

Late last year, Mr Joyce was forced to fight a byelection in his seat of New England after renouncing his New Zealand citizenship-by-descent. Natalie Joyce and the couple’s daughters – Bridgette, Julia, Caroline and Odette – were notably absent from that campaign.

Other chapters in the forthcoming book will take in Mr Joyce’s 2015 stoush with actor Johnny Depp and his then wife Amber Heard over their Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo.

The dogs arrived on the Gold Coast without proper permits and did not go through quarantine. Mr Joyce, then agriculture minister, threatened to have Pistol and Boo killed unless they were removed from Australia.

Heard was eventually fined $1000 and placed on a good behaviour bond. She and Depp also recorded a video apology that went viral.

Fairfax Media reports Mr Joyce would have been paid about $25,000 for his book. New Holland is also the publisher of Bob Katter’s memoir, Conversations with Katter, and – just this month – Conversations in the Kitchen, a cookbook by former Labor leader and political commentator Mark Latham and broadcaster Alan Jones.

Other publishers, including Melbourne University Press and Sydney’s Curtis Brown, are said to have turned down the opportunity to publish Mr Joyce’s memoir.

But Mr Whiticker was confident about the prospects for the former deputy PM’s work.

“He’s a very good writer, with a larrikin sense of humour.”

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