Barnaby Joyce is the gift that just keeps giving to Labor

With the Joyce saga, Bill Shorten has found himself hit on the backside by a rainbow.

Zero political intelligence is the hallmark of the Turnbull era. Sunday’s miniature press conference in Melbourne proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that our Prime Minister is living in his own fantasy land.

To think, for even a second, that the nation is prepared to accept that on Thursday he informs us that his Deputy PM is to take leave for a week (not take over as Acting Prime Minister) to “consider his position” after an “appalling error of judgement”, then on Sunday tell us he has made up with Barnaby Joyce is beyond belief. Once again, he is prepared to treat voters as absolute mugs. It would not matter if there were photographs of the two of them in flagrante delicto, no one would accept that the two of them could work together again. One of them must go.

That Barnaby Joyce is prepared to wreck any chance the government had in the next election to save his own wretched skin must be as staggering to his National Party colleagues as it is to the rest of us. He refuses to accept any responsibility for his single-minded selfishness which is trashing the government’s standing. So far his colleagues have failed to show a skerrick of courage. They are too gutless to administer the coup de grace that the whole country knows must come. The Deputy Prime Minister has taken the government’s future as hostage to his personal ambitions. Tragically everyone in this government, from the Prime Minister down, is aiding and abetting Joyce by their inaction.

Listening to Scott Morrison pretending that after a frank chat, all will be well again in the Coalition was sad. Scott will never win the Oscar for best supporting actor. Australians are not about to suffer a collective amnesia so they can forget the tit-for-tat exchange between Turnbull and Joyce last Thursday and Friday.

Neville Wran always said that even the best politicians needed luck. Bill Shorten has been struck on his bottom by a rainbow. He is the luckiest politician I can recall. Kerry Packer couldn’t believe his luck when he got Alan Bond to pay too much for the Nine Network and when he paid too little to buy it back. Shorten has done far better than this. He has had Barnaby Joyce showering him with gifts for almost a fortnight. When the PM showed some leadership by declaring Joyce a liability who should take a week off to consider his position, most of us thought Shorten’s long celebrations would end. That the PM walked up to the leadership edge but quickly back-tracked means that Shorten can once again break out the champagne. The Joyce affair now looks like sucking out all the oxygen available to the government. Shorten may well get another week or two of daily headlines revealing more on a scandal that will not go away while Joyce remains Deputy Prime Minister. He more than any other individual will be responsible for electing a Labor Government. I doubt that was the legacy he envisaged.

Meanwhile there is one job the Prime Minister can do. He should commission the parliamentary carpenters to erect a sign over the joint party room door. It should read “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”.