Barnaby Joyce has taken a swipe at the culture of state politics after rumours were circulated about the health of Deputy Premier John Barilaro.

The Deputy Premier revealed he’d been undergoing testing on a cyst in his throat and says rumours started swirling he had non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Mr Barilaro says he caught colleagues trying to use a health scare to “strike” at Nationals leadership.

And the rumours made it all the way to federal Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce.

Mr Joyce tells Chris Smith it’s “absolute rubbish” and that he heard about it when someone from within the party approached him at a cafe.

“I’ll tell you this how works, Chris. You got snipers, you got targets and you got bullets.

“Snipers don’t really care… they try to stay hidden or they try to stay protected.

“Targets are any political figure who they want to get rid of.

“And bullets, well they can be anything. A lie, another person, any sort of fabrication.

“This time, the bullet was a story that [John Barilaro] apparently had non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which he doesn’t!”

Mr Joyce says after it was revealed to him, another politician denied the rumours.

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