The Sketch: war games and majority wobbles, and it’s only Tuesday

‘You can laugh as much as you like,’ Malcolm Turnbull told opposition MPs in question time yesterday. And they did. Picture: Kym Smith

So it came to pass that the Deputy Prime Minister was in citizenship strife, the government’s tiny maj­ority wobbled, and we kind of ­declared war on New Zealand. And it was only Tuesday.

In any other week, proper love could have been lavished on, say, Jacqui Lambie’s reminiscences about taking her staff Christmas shopping at a dildo emporium, or Kevin Andrews musing about love and cycling.

Not this week, though. Not the week that gave us Barnaby Joyce, accidental Kiwi.

Come question time yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull set the tone early by extending an invitation to Labor: “You can laugh as much as you like.”

It was thoughtful of him to give such licence, for he was followed by backbencher Lucy Wicks: “Will the Prime Minister update the house on the risk posed by foreign state interference in Australia’s democratic processes ...”

It was meant to hand a stick to Turnbull for the purpose of banging the war drum loud enough to be heard across the ditch, but why kid ourselves? All roads led back to the accidental Kiwi, slumped on the frontbench like he’d had all his tendons cut. Every sentence was a potential booby trap, whether it was the PM asserting “our first loyalty is to Australia”, or Peter Dutton suggesting hopefully, “I tell you one thing the Labor Party doesn’t like talking about: border protection policy.”

Turnbull’s licence to giggle was utilised often, but it’s doubtful anyone had as much fun as Tony Burke, who went about his business like a boy who’d dreamt of getting a boogie board for Christmas only to score an aircraft carrier. Not least when he quizzed Julie Bishop about her shirtfronting of the NZ Labour Party yesterday morning: “If the Foreign Minister won’t be able to work with the New Zealanders, how will (she) be able to work with the Deputy PM?”

There was a brief danger when Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon mentioned Joyce’s nemesis Tony Windsor just as Joyce was sipping from his glass of water; they say you can drown in just six tablespoons of water.

Mercifully, Joyce survived and after a false start, got a chance to speak. “Over the course of the weekend we went through the process of renunciation,” he said with a certain quiet confidence.

“We’ve received verbal communication from New Zealand before question time that that has been accepted and we’re looking forward to the written advice turning up pronto.”

Later, the government drop­ped the ball in the House of Representatives and lost a vote. After everything else, it felt like a welcome return to a more familiar shambles.

Now it’s Wednesday. The week is still so young.