Around Tamworth wags are saying they knew Barnaby Joyce had a dual personality but everybody knew his father Jim was a Kiwi and locals heard he had checked it out. None can believe that amid all his customary bluster and blather he would be dumb enough to have dual citizenship.
Now the voters of the NSW electorate of new England may hold the fate of Malcolm Turnbull's government in their ballot boxes but they are bemused and slightly annoyed that their boy is being traduced.
And out on the farm where he grew up, the Deputy Prime Minister's mum and dad Marie and Jim are sick and tired of the subject of New Zealand.
They live in a federation brick homestead with a green roof in the rolling New England hills a 20-minute drive from the nearest town of Woolbrook, where their only son attended primary school – but isolation has been no protection.
Perhaps one of the few people in Australia publicly not buying into the issue, Mrs Joyce politely rejected requests to talk about her son's imbroglio.
"The phone hasn't stopped with the media," she said on Wednesday.
"No offence but we don't wish to comment … it's all slightly ridiculous."
Nobody in New England seriously doubts Mr Joyce would easily win a by-election if it came to that – even though his old nemesis and the independent he took the seat off last federal election, Tony Windsor, told Fairfax Media he would consider standing again after he finished holiday in the Northern Territory.
"Not ruling anything out at this stage," Mr Windsor said.
Wollun's Lisa Burgess, who is a full-time carer for her mother and tends a herd of Guy Fawkes Heritage brumbies captured in the national park six years back, said Mr Joyce's travails "were ridiculous" and she could not understand why somebody born in Australia did not qualify for election to Parliament.
"They made these rules up years ago and now they're scoring points off one another in Canberra instead of fixing things up," she said.
"I voted for Barnaby last time but if there is a by-election but maybe I'd look at who else pops up as an independent. Wouldn't touch Labor with a barge pole."
Co-owner, chef and baker of the Walcha Road Hotel (Royal) Garry Fairley is rock solid behind Mr Joyce, not least because he occasionally drops in for a beer.
"He is a good local member. Gets things done in a way Tony Windsor stopped doing once he got into bed with Julia Gillard," he said.
Mr Fairley is evidence of how when it comes to Mr Joyce they've "got his back" in New England.
"I used to be a member of the Communist Party of Australia," the 69-year-old said.
"I was a member of the BLF with Jack Munday and in those days you knew what the political parties stand for. Not today. But you know what Barnaby stands for."
Barry Cotten, 77, retired to the New England hills five years ago after working as a farm labourer all his life and said the Joyce family is respected in the bush and no matter what city folk think of the Deputy Prime Minister, he speaks their language.
"He isn't going anywhere," Mr Cotton said.
Retired historian Bruce Watson, of Kentucky, has been an inveterate letter to the editor writer since his days working at universities in Canberra, Sydney and Armidale, and said the Joyce issue of dual nationality has "opened a can of worms".
"For instance, should any Australian with any sort of dual citizenship be allowed to vote in any Australian elections?" he asked.
"There is nothing on record to show to show that Barnaby Joyce has ever considered himself or acted in a way that might demonstrate he is other than a totally committed Australian.
"In fact many people have regularly considered him as an over-the-top Australian in the way he conducts himself."
An online poll in Tamworth's Northern Daily Leader gave some indication that not everybody thought Mr Joyce's New Zealand problem was a joke.
Late on Wednesday, 67 per cent of the 1228 readers who took part in the poll said he should "step down as rules are rules". The remaining 33 per cent thought he should stay on as he was "as Australian as a meat pie".
