Deputy keeps job despite calling Scott Morrison a liar

Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has said he offered to quit after calling the prime minister "a hypocrite and a liar" in a text.

Mr Joyce apologised after learning that the message - sent last year and passed to a former staffer of Scott Morrison's Liberal Party - was being made public.

The text was dated 22 March, before Mr Joyce took on his current role.

Rejecting his resignation, Mr Morrison said: "We all have our frailties and none of us are perfect."

Mr Joyce, 54, told reporters on Saturday: "I want to apologise to the prime minister... I should have never written the text that I did.

"My view from the backbench about the prime minister was based on assumptions and commentary, not from a one-on-one working relationship."

In a screenshot of the text message, which was leaked earlier this week, Mr Joyce describes Mr Morrison as "a hypocrite and a liar from my observations, and that is over a long time", adding: "I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie."

He further says he "never trusted" and did not "get along" with Mr Morrison.

It was sent by a third party to Brittany Higgins, a former political adviser who worked for Mr Morrison's Liberal Party.