Barnaby Joyce sparks mayhem, then weirdness

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce in Question Time. Picture: Kym Smith

Once upon a time, Paul Keating handed down his memorable — if premature — verdict on John Howard: “What we have got is a dead carcass, swinging in the breeze, but nobody will cut it down to replace him.” Yesterday was an ambitious step forward from a carcass, with question time doubling as the world’s first autopsy on a living organism.

Aware of the trailblazing nature of the moment, Malcolm Turnbull sounded suitably tentative as he administered the first incision: “The Deputy Prime Minister will be taking leave from Monday. And accordingly will not be able to be Acting Prime Minister while I’m overseas.”

Mayhem ensued, but ultimately the sixth question time of the Barnaby Joyce saga was notable for its quiet moments. Well, that and its monumental weirdness.

Not least Turnbull stopping during an uncharacteristically hesitant answer to consult with Joyce on the finer details of this ballooning mess. And when that wasn’t enough, Turnbull turned to his iPad for assistance. “Ask Siri!” called one Labor wag.

“I hesitate to get into a debate here,” he said hopefully at one point, having apparently progressed beyond rage into a strange, dreamlike state.

And Labor just kept coming with questions about Joyce’s living arrangements and his relationship with the generous mate who’d made it all possible. It was a cool, calm, forensic interrogation, one rolled out at the ominously leisurely pace of people armed with a stockpile the size of Kosciuszko.

Their target was at least afforded some comfort. While Joyce’s ministerial colleagues were squished up against each other, the Deputy PM had a comfortable buffer zone of empty green leather on either side. It was like the business class section of the frontbench, just not in a good way.

Sentences burst free of their context, such as when Agriculture Minister David Littleproud tried sledging Labor with, “No wonder people despair of politics and politicians.”

When it was done, Joyce got up and ambled away from the frontbench for possibly the last time.

Then into question time’s surreal afterglow burst an announcement from Turnbull’s office, inviting journalists to hear him damn Joyce’s “shocking error of judgment”. There, flanked by two flags beneath the warm, blue sky, Turnbull sidestepped the myriad dodgy bits of this upturned septic tank of a crisis to focus on the sex angle and lay down a minister/staff sex ban — which is surely how we all imagined 21st century Australia.

Making it clear Joyce was the Nationals’ problem to solve, Turnbull urged him to go off on his leave and “reflect”. Translated in the kindest terms, this amounted to handing him a shotgun and directions to the Sam Dastyari Memorial Back Paddock, a place where nothing swings and no breeze blows.