Barnaby Joyce is adrift, in denial and facing peril of biblical proportions

PM Malcolm Turnbull and Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce in Question Time in the House of Representatives Chamber, Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

A cock has crowed in parliament well before dawn and Malcolm Turnbull has thrice denied any ­association with Barnaby Joyce to save himself.

The end seems nigh for the Deputy Prime Minister and his “mate”, the Prime Minister, is ­distancing himself by the hour to limit the damage to him and the government.

As anger grows over Joyce’s pig-headed denial of the damage he is doing to the ­Coalition and the Nationals, while he refuses to offer a clear and detailed ­explanation of his actions, Turnbull is refusing to defend him or identify with his defence.

Dangerously for Turnbull and his key advisers, some of his ­denials are at odds with briefings given from his own office. Mixed messages from a prime minister’s office at a time of crisis can be fatal and lead to the demise of ministers, senior staff and even the leader.

What’s more, even those ­Nationals who believe that Joyce’s time is up could be driven to offer tribal support to him if he digs in because they cannot abide Liberal interference.

A frustrated Turnbull has understandably left Joyce to clear his mess and take responsibility for derailing the government’s better start to the parliamentary year. Yesterday in question time, Turnbull clinically separated himself from the growing storm about the potential misuse of ­public funds and a clear conflict of interest for Joyce.

As in the scriptures, Turnbull denied Joyce three times. He again denied any role in “decisions relating to staffing in the ­office of Nationals’ members”; he denied authorising use of the ­risible argument that a mistress can be hired but a wife can’t; and he denied any role in the job ­transfer, other than an “administrative” function.

One thing he did not deny was that he had been ringing Nationals MPs to gauge support for Joyce’s leadership, an almost unthinkable act for previous Coalition leaders.

This is a breach of trust and party interference not even contemplated when the then Coalition leaders John Howard and Ian Sinclair were removed in dual but unconnected coups on the same day in 1989.

The Sky News reports of phone calls were initially denied by the Prime Minister’s Office, and Mathias Cormann in the Senate, obviously anxious to avoid the appearance of cross-party interference, but there was enough substance to prevent a parliamentary denial.

As Turnbull kept the focus on Joyce, Labor asked the Liberal leader questions about the Nationals’ internal decisions and peppered Joyce with detailed infrastructure questions to keep him frustrated and off-balance. At one stage, Scott Morrison intervened, using his calculator and budget briefs to write a potted response for Joyce to put back to Labor.

As Joyce took the handwritten answer and jumped to the dispatch box, Christopher Pyne picked up Joyce’s dropped parliamentary briefs and restored order to the folder. But neither the Treasurer’s answer nor the Leader of the House’s touch could bring sense or calm to Joyce’s responses as he was cut further adrift.