Barnaby Joyce derails Coalition just as PM was back in the polls

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce and PM Malcolm Turnbull in the House of Representatives Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra.

There was a moment on Friday afternoon when it seemed clear that Barnaby Joyce’s political career probably is finished. You could see the blood draining from Malcolm Turnbull’s face, you could read the justified curses in his mind, and feel the momentum of the Coalition’s mini-fightback falling into a black hole of tawdry mundanity that should never even figure in matters of national leadership.

But that is what the Deputy Prime Minister had done. Forget the issues of character, trust and morality that are none of our business — we can never know the inner workings of anyone else’s relationships — but Barnaby’s poor judgment and poor management had allowed his personal life to derail his government.

So on Friday afternoon the Prime Minister was hosting the formal media conference with all the state and territory leaders after the Council of Australian Governments meeting — usually a wonky, high-minded, policy-orientated event — and he was asked about Barnaby, or more specifically, whether everything was “above board” when it came to the job switches and promotions for his girlfriend and former staffer Vikki Campion.

Turnbull was having none of it. “Can we just focus on COAG, we’ve got Closing the Gap, we’ve got health, we’ve got schools,” he protested.

Here was the leader of the nation reduced to the tedious, low-rent dance of avoiding questions triggered by another man’s personal imprudence. Turnbull would have hated it — and understandably so.

The journalists came back to the issue. “Prime Minister, can I ask, did you, can you confirm that you personally counselled Barnaby Joyce to remove a staff member from his office, a staff member he was having an affair with?”

Zing. A question that went directly not just to the Prime Minister’s Office and staffing approval but to his alleged personal counselling of his deputy.

“I was asked about this matter this morning and I’ve got nothing to add…” he said dismissively, but “not that question” interrupted the journalist as Turnbull continued, “…to what I said this morning.”

Yet the Prime Minister had studiously avoided the issues of staffing that morning. “I don’t want to add to the public discussion about it,” he had said, expressing concern for Joyce’s family.

There have been more questions since. There have been more revelations. This will get worse for the government — regardless of the fact other MPs have been involved in similar controversies (most notably Labor’s parliamentary manager Tony Burke).

So what has the Deputy Prime Minister done to the government, apart from provide an unholy distraction? Turnbull’s start to the year had been better than he could have hoped, largely because of a bit of luck.

Labor was helping him by dancing with the Greens on loony Left ideas such as shifting the date of Australia Day and blocking the Adani coal mine. Labor had also exposed itself as duplicitous and vulnerable on the dual citizenship issue, with Susan Lamb and Justine Keay refusing to resign or refer themselves to the High Court, despite all the evidence suggesting they were ineligible for parliament when they nominated for last year’s election. And Donald Trump’s tax cut victory in the US has not only helped to boost global economic growth estimates but bolstered Turnbull’s key argument for tax cuts.

The Coalition had started to inch back in the polls. This had happened in the way it was always going to happen — lost voters on the right fringe who had parked their intentions with One Nation were starting to drift back. The Nationals Leader, as the pre-eminent social conservative in the government, is a crucial running mate for Turnbull in reassuring conservative voters they can come back to the Coalition. Can Barnaby be that person any more, or has he destroyed his own brand and that of the social conservatives? In an ugly saga said to be bereft of winners, people might have forgotten about Cory Bernardi and Pauline Hanson.

The fact we have not seen Turnbull blow up in public yet, frankly, surprises me. He has every right to — he has been let down by foolishness. I have been disappointed by his prime ministership and critical of his lack of policy differentiation. But Turnbull could always argue that his strategy has been one of calm and steady progress so that he might be re-elected by a reassured electorate.

About a week ago this strategy was starting to pay dividends. It had been blown off course last year by the silly citizenship oversights of the Deputy Prime Minister and others. Having weathered by-elections and turmoil over same sex marriage, Turnbull was just getting into his stride this year — daring to dream he could break his now ominous run of losing Newspolls — and he has been tripped over by Barnaby’s strides around his ankles.

This imperils the government’s standing, jeopardises Turnbull’s self-imposed Newspoll imperative, angers conservative voters and could increase the chances of leadership instability and/or an eventual election loss. Thanks Barnaby.

In public affairs the personal can be political. Therefore the personal can have an impact all the way up the tree on the good governance of this nation.

Putting personal issues aside for the professional, Joyce and Campion failed to manage the employment situation properly — they needed to make sure there was no question of public funding for private convenience — and they also failed to manage the public release of information about what was always going to be a matter of public interest.

The extent of involvement from the Prime Minister and his office is still unknown. But on Friday afternoon, under the glare of cameras and questions, Turnbull was put in a terrible spot. A deputy who puts a Prime Minister in that sort of position is not one that can be easily tolerated.