Joyce affair: that sinking feeling for a floundering Coalition

Nationals MPs have no choice but to move against their leader.

Nationals MPs will now have no choice but to move against their leader, whether by force or persuasion, if there is any hope for the government’s survival.

What was at first a problem for the Nationals and Barnaby Joyce himself has turned into a Coalition melodrama, a Shakespearean tragicomedy, and one that will end only in tears. The effect has been immediate.

Malcolm Turnbull has taken a big hit from his intervention and the government has lost any momentum it rightly believed was beginning to swing its way.

But there are two interpretations that can be taken from the latest Newspoll numbers that have slashed the Coalition’s modest but encouraging gains this year. Neither of them are good news for the government.

The easiest answer would be to attribute it all to Joyce. No doubt the Prime Minister will be pushing this view. It is convenient and it suggests that with Joyce gone, things can again begin to improve.

The problem is Joyce is refusing to go. Voters’ judgment of the Nationals leader has been swift and severe. Two-thirds of Australians believe he should resign, either to the backbench or from parliament entirely.

Joyce’s future as the Deputy Prime Minister is all but uncontested. The only exception to this view is Joyce himself.

The more difficult pill to swallow is that Joyce has had little to do with the polling numbers that have returned the Coalition to the abysmal numbers that dogged it until the end of last year.

If the theory of a summer bounce for the government holds true, then it could easily represent a correction back to the status quo.

If Joyce were the factor, then it is surprising that the government wasn’t clobbered.

Conservative voters have been swinging back and forth between One Nation and the Coalition since Malcolm Turnbull became leader. This represents up to 4 per cent of a disaffected constituency that hates Turnbull but is scared of Shorten.

This, rather than Joyce, continues to be the deeper structural problem for the Coalition.

Dismissing the possibility that voters have judged Joyce but not necessarily punished the government further because of him would be unwise.

So, too, would be taking too simplistic a view of what lies behind the judgment of Joyce.

The Queensland breakdown is noteworthy. Most of the movement from the Coalition to One Nation is in that state.

There is a view that the moral outrage of the older LNP supporters in Queensland has produced the rebound in support for One Nation after having had their Christian values assaulted.

Regional voters have marked Joyce down more than city folk.

But is it the affair itself that voters have found so obnoxious?

In some parts of regional Australia, people have no doubt over-invested in Joyce. They believed he was the authentic knockabout, a Trump-like figure who had not been seduced by Canberra.

That has been torn away. Joyce has been exposed as a man seduced by Canberra in the worst possible way.

He is no longer an outsider carrying the message of the bush to the capital. He is the ultimate insider and for that reason, rather than the morality question, he has let them down.

Joyce is now sinking in the swamp. The question for the Nationals is whether they want to be dragged in there with him.