They're putting the band back together - but Barnaby Joyce ain't buying tickets. Under pressure in his own seat from predecessor Tony Windsor, the Deputy Prime Minister used his pre-election address at the National Press Club to rail against independents, Greens and minor parties, deriding them as populists and rogues. 
"They stand outside the order of the nation. They play from the edges," Mr Joyce said. "They claim credit for virtually everything but [they're] not responsible for anything."
Recent polls have shown the major parties struggling to retain support, with voters embracing independents, micro-parties and new forces, such as the Nick Xenophon Team.
Nowhere is that contest sharper than Mr Joyce's seat of New England, where the Nationals leader is neck-and-neck with the independent Mr Windsor, who retired from politics at the 2013 election before announcing a comeback in   March.
Also attempting to rejoin the fray is another former MP, Rob Oakeshott, who, together with Mr Windsor, backed in the minority Labor government under Julia Gillard in 2010.
Entertaining the Canberra press pack on Wednesday, Mr Joyce labelled them "the front page of the Glee Club". "The band is back together, offering us the same chaos that was brought to us at the last concert," he said, citing the mining tax and price on carbon.
"Let's envisage a [Parliament] with 150 independents. What we [would] have is total and utter chaos. That's the end of Australia. The Commonwealth will collapse."
The colourful Press Club address also contained policy sweeteners for regional Australia: $100 million to seal the Outback Way, more generous eligibility requirements for remote students claiming youth allowance and a new "regional investment corporation" for water and agriculture financing.
Mr Joyce also cited a recent Lowy Institute poll that found nearly 90 per cent of Australians opposed the sale of agricultural land to foreign companies. "It is not politically incorrect, nor xenophobic, nor myopic, to have a proper control over who owns what in your nation," he said. But the recurrent motif was in defence of the two-party system, rid of independents, populists and other irritants. The Nationals leader knows his best hope of success in his electorate is pitching himself as the only man who can deliver results and be a regional advocate at the very heart of government.
"I don't think there is anything courageous about being the biggest hit in Aussies," he said, referencing the Parliament House coffee stop where pollies and journos often congregate. "It is better to be the biggest hit in cabinet."
Mr Joyce's comments came as an exclusive Fairfax Media poll of farmers showed almost three-quarters ofthose surveyed said they intended to vote for the Coalition on   July 2, and 61 per cent preferred Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister. Only 4 per cent of rural voters prefered Bill Shorten as PM. Mr Joyce came in at 5 per cent.