On Tuesday last week, with Scott Morrison in Europe, Michael McCormack took the chair in Parliament as acting prime minister. But what McCormack – and the political establishment at large – did not know was that his leadership was already finished.

Barnaby Joyce, who had been stalking McCormack since he was forced to relinquish the leadership more than three years ago, had already secured the numbers among the 21 Nationals MPs and senators to seize back his job.